On Friday, dozens of pro-life
activists gathered at the Personhood Conference in Washington, D.C.
On Thursday, the 36th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, they had marched with the tens
of thousands of anti-choice activists, but today these activists were talking about personhood, a new plan of attack for the anti-choice movement. These activists are frustrated and
tired of incrementalist approaches to abortion. "It’s not working,"
announced Shaun Kenney of the American Life League. "It’s failing."

The Personhood Conference,
organized by the American Life League, enlisted speakers from a variety of segments of the pro-life movement, including a rising star, Kristi Burton.
Burton is a 21-year-old woman who spearheaded the campaign for a state constitutional amendment in Colorado that
sought to define life as beginning at fertilization. Burton says the
Colorado personhood movement projects a "positive message," unites
pro-lifers, and doesn’t personally attack pro-choice activists.

Although Burton may say she
leads a new way, the overall message of the conference was conflicted.
She said she promotes a positive message, but two of the other speakers
at the conference, Lila Rose and Alan Keyes, both presented very traditional
messages from the pro-life movement. Rose, who gained fame in the movement
for her "investigative" work on Planned Parenthood by posing as
a 13-year-old girl, claimed to be a "new media" advocate, but Rose’s
first video was one that displayed cut-up fetal tissue, an age-old tactic
in the anti-choice movement. The parallels she drew to the Holocaust,
abuse of Native Americans, slavery, and women’s suffrage movements are
long-established narratives in the movement. Rose also adopted the language
of painting the woman as a victim and women’s "complex psychological
needs."

Former contender for the Republican
presidential ticket Alan Keyes harked to an even older age of fire-and-brimstone
preaching. Keyes’ entire speech, which lasted 57 minutes, discussed
Cain, Abel, Noah, and other biblical figures, but didn’t mention the
word abortion explicitly. Largely, his speech served to motivate, but
lacked any real substance on the future of the anti-choice movement.
He urged the audience to fight against the "army of darkness" and told the audience that "God wants us to live." Keyes’
only mention of policy was to fight against the Freedom of Choice Act,
legislation that hasn’t even been introduced into the current congressional
session.

Burton’s message was more
practical. She was proud of the fact the personhood amendment was simple:
"Person defined. As used in sections 3, 6, and 25 of Article II of
the state constitution, the terms ‘person’ or ‘persons’
shall include any human being from the moment of fertilization." She
urged the pro-life movement to begin to hire political consultants,
analyze polling data, and raise more money. This, she admits, comes
from her active work with the Republican Party. She noted that the personhood
movement often doesn’t get support from mainstream Republicans, pointing
to the Republican Senate candidate in Colorado, Bob Schaffer, who came out against
the personhood amendment
despite identifying as pro-life. "Politicians and pro-lifers don’t
really get along that well," Burton said.

Most of all, she noted, the
movement needs to unify. "Do you ever see NARAL, Planned Parenthood
or NOW fighting against each other? No, because they have one goal and
they don’t really care about anything but their goal," Burton said.

She apparently thinks the pro-life
movement should follow suit and use the personhood framework to support
other amendments that aren’t necessarily aimed at achieving personhood.
She supports informed consent laws, like those that South Dakota recently
passed, "What it did is it required doctors, before they give an abortion
to a woman, to tell her, ‘If you have an abortion you’ll be terminating
the life of a new, unique, separate living human being,’" Burton
said. "If something like that is tried could we use the personhood
message to educate people while that battle’s going on."

She believes the personhood
framework can be adapted to battles like abortion, stem cell research,
fetal alcohol syndrome, "fetal homicide" (laws that criminalize
accidental or intentional death of a fetus), and emergency contraception.
But Burton seemed ill-informed about the "lies" of her opposition: "They
said, ‘If the Colorado personhood amendment passes birth control will
be outlawed. In vitro fertilization will be outlawed.’ All these things
that weren’t true," she said. "The personhood amendment was a
definition. What it said was that in the future, when our courts and
our legislators are considering laws relating to those kind of things–I
mean in Colorado there isn’t even a law on birth control so how a
definition can affect a law that doesn’t exist, I’m not sure."

When I asked Burton after her speech to talk in
more depth about the Colorado personhood amendment, she said, "Our basic viewpoint
is anything that purposely kills a human being shouldn’t be allowed.
However, there are plenty of forms of birth control that don’t do
that. For instance, I am not against all birth control. A lot of the forms of birth control are a personal
choice between couples." It is interesting that she is willing to
admit that couples may want to make a private decision about birth control
but not about abortion. Even more interesting, she seems to accept birth
control, the most common form of which is an oral contraceptive, but opposes emergency
contraception, something that is essentially the same hormonal drug
in two different doses.

Burton, someone who the pro-life
movement is beginning to look to in their time of frustration with incrementalism
and someone who seems to offer sweeping change, strays from one of the
firmest tenants of the pro-life movement–an opposition to birth control. Yet their rhetoric, in an effort
to be simple, raises more questions than it answers. While the anti-choice movement might agree that life begins "at fertilization," its members seem to differ over just what that means. Ultimately
this might mean the movement is more divided than ever.

I have to say that much as it saddens me, I have to disagree with your point in the final paragraph. These "rising stars" of the anti choice movement know how to reach out to young people – which is what adds numbers to their cause. For this reason, it is imperative that the prochoice movement keeps up a public education campaign.

The personal is political.

invalid-0

The future of the anti-choice movement, pushing for measures that would establish legal personhood from the moment of fertilization?

We can only hope. Because the sheer idiocy of anthropomorphizing a zygote would finally be made explicit, and everyone could laugh at these people and get on with their lives. It’s like the prospect of Sarah Palin becoming the standard-bearer for the GOP… how much easier that would make our jobs!

Which is why I doubt the whole “personhood” approach is going to get much traction. It didn’t fly in Colorado, I doubt it’ll fly anywhere else, and I don’t think the anti-choice movement will want to basically parody themselves by publicly pushing for it. (Next thing you know, they’ll want to count unfertilized eggs as three-fifths of a person… :-)

invalid-0

There are plenty of “choices” for birth control that prevent the fertilization of the egg and thus, the creation of life. You are very ill-informed if you believe that most pro-life people are against these forms of birth control. It is not an “anti-choice” movement at all, any more than you are “pro-choice.” The choice you want to have is to refuse to take responsibility for your choices.

The pro-life movement is not divided at all over what it means that life begins at fertilization. It’s pretty self-explanatory. Science tells us that a fertilized egg has unique DNA from the mother and the father – therefore it is a unique life. This life is not part of the mother (if it were it would have her DNA), so what right does she have to destroy it? It is extremely hypocritical for a pro-choice president to say his administration is going to rely on “science,” when he clearly ignores the facts.

mellankelly1

The choice you want to have is to refuse to take responsibility for your choices

Choosing to terminate ones pregnancy is every bit as responsible as choosing to gestate ones pregnancy. How you feel about either choice does not alter how responsible it is.

Science tells us that a fertilized egg has unique DNA from the mother and the father

Right… and we all know that the accepted definition of personhood is "having unique DNA." You are perfectly free to treat your zygotes as if their "lives" are on par with yours; I however, will not be doing that… and that’s okay too.

invalid-0

Science tells us that a fertilized egg has unique DNA from the mother and the father – therefore it is a unique life. This life is not part of the mother (if it were it would have her DNA), so what right does she have to destroy it?

In the same paragraph, you say that the fertilized egg does and does not have DNA from the mother. The rest of your argument is not much more coherent than that. You claim that the President isn’t relying on science, but neither are you.

invalid-0

I think she meant that the DNA of the zygote is uniquely different from that of the mother and father, being a combination of the two of them. Each person’s unique identity can be read in her DNA. Even identical twins have spots of their DNA that aren’t the same. But, most importantly, you can tell from the DNA if the individual is a member of the human species or not. That is the crucial point. Are all members of the human species people? Are all humans CREATED EQUAL, from the beginning? Or does their legal status depend upon what others think of them. If they are wanted, then, fetal homicide laws protect them. If not, they are blobs of tissue. Sounds like eugenics to me.

You can say that you are going to treat your zygotes as non-persons because the law allows that. However, the law is wrong. The law needs to conform to biological reality. Zygotes are individual members of the human species (and thus persons) in their earliest moments of life. Period. Choosing to treat the most defenseless among us as blobs of tissue having no civil rights has unfortunately become the dominant ideology, and it’s horrific.

invalid-0

Kay, I don’t know where you get the idea that opposition to birth control is one of the firmest tenents of the anti-abortion movement. You are confused because you don’t understand the difference between “contraceptives” which are actually abortifacient because they allow fertilization some or much of the time (BCPs, ECs, IUDs) and real contraceptives which actually prevent fertilization and don’t rely on preventing embryos from implanting (barrier methods, sterilization).

The reason for your confusion is that the American College of Gynecologists and Obstetricians (ACOG) has redefined the words “conception” (and therefore, the “beginning of pregnancy”) to mean “implantation” instead of “fertilization” so as to make abortifacient forms of “contraception” palatable to women – especially those that think that their children’s lives begin at “conception”. If that was a confusing sentence, that’s what ACOG intended. CONFUSION. If you don’t get it, how can you expect the general population to make the distinction? That was ACOG’s intention. Now, even pro-life women think that EC is OK because they are told that it doesn’t harm a pregnancy (which they think begins at conception, but supposedly now officially begins at implantation). WHEW!!

The segment of the pro-life movement (it’s a small part) that opposes contraception, does so because it is aware of the abortifacient effects of many so-called contraceptives. Kay, can you respond to this?

invalid-0

Sigh…here we go again. Apologies to all of you who have heard it before

So Ms Brady…what about the non-contraceptive applications of chemical BC? By your reasoning, women who use the pill to treat other conditions are simply out of luck?

Annnd…by your own reasoning, extending equal protection under the law to zygotes cannot be accomplished without
implementing “the systematic removal/restriction of women from ANY employment/activity that increases the potential for miscarriage.

Employers, fearing liability, will simply not hire women.

Female cops? Well, maybe desk jobs.

Recent studies of women lawyers in high stress firms showed the risk of miscarriage was tripled.

Military Service? No can do…

Construction? High risks there.

One of my girlfriends races dirt bikes. Another competes in mountain biking. Again, high risk hobbies.

Even the medical fields could be off limits. Chemical and radiation exposure are known to threaten pregnancies.

IUDs? Nope.”

The list is endless.

Essentially Ms Brady…you cannot apply equal protection laws to the zygote/embryo/fetus without simultaneously stripping all fertile women of that very same equal protection.

But by all means, tell us your plan.

invalid-0

Zygotes fated to become identical twins do not split into two beings until a few days after fertilization. That tells me there is no soul associated with a newly-fertilized egg.

I think of a newly fertilized egg as a blueprint for a future human being. There is no human being there yet until there is a functioning brain with brain waves, which doesn’t happen for weeks after fertilization.

mellankelly1

You can say that you are going to treat your zygotes as non-persons because the law allows that

Oh, if this was directed at my response, let me clarify. I have always treated my zygotes, embryo’s and/or fetus’ as zygotes, embryo’s and/or fetus’. The law allows women to decide whether to continue or terminate their pregnancy; laws do not govern the personal belief systems of people.

The law needs to conform to biological reality

Laws are written in order to protect citizens. There is nothing about Roe v. Wade which denies "biological reality."

Zygotes are individual members of the human species

The conceptus of a human male and human female could be described as nothing other than human. The zygote, embryo and fetus is not a citizen and there is no consensus on the "personhood" of the zygote, embryo and/or fetus. However, there is no questioning the personhood and citizenship of a woman… or a pregnant woman (even if her pregnancy is unwanted.) I find it odd that you wouldn’t find it "horrific" if we were to deny women (from the moment that they become pregnant) their full citizenship rights. To each his/her own, right?

invalid-0

“Science tells us that a fertilized egg has unique DNA from the mother and the father – therefore it is a unique life. This life is not part of the mother (if it were it would have her DNA), so what right does she have to destroy it?”

By this definition, cancer is a unique life, owing to the fact that it has DNA that is different from the host’s DNA. That’s what makes it cancer. So do we have no right to remove cancerous objects from a person’s body? Your arguement has no legs to stand on. Until the child can live outside of the womb, it’s a part of the mother’s body.

invalid-0

The point is a women has a right to do what she wants with her own body which does not belong to science the church or the gov. and anti choicers etc,etc. Wars kill thousands of innocent children. Who stops the wars???

invalid-0

Actually, it’s pretty much impossible to be sure of fertilization. In fact, about 50% of fertilized eggs never implant at all. So what about those? And BC works mainly to stop fertilization. So you’ve got no real argument there either.

invalid-0

“Actually, it’s pretty much impossible to be sure of fertilization.”

Precisely. So logically, in order to implement equal protection under the law for the zygote/embryo/fetus, the law would be obliged to assume that all women of childbearing age are pregnant at all times, and define protections accordingly.

invalid-0

Actually, around 90% of zygotes are able to implant. The 50% statistic is based on one outdated study. Laboratory animal studies confirm a much greater survival rate. Even if the bogus research were true, what difference would it make? Nature taking its course is quite different morally from the intentional killing of innocent human beings.

About confirming fertilization – yes, there are currently no tests to do this before implantation. All the more reason for women to act differently from men and take care of themselves in case they might already be a mother without knowing it.

Yes, the BCP mainly acts to prevent fertilization by preventing ovulation. But another mechanism of action is to prevent implantation should the first mechanism fail, which it does around ten percent of the time.

invalid-0

The point is that the pregnant woman’s body holds another’s body.

invalid-0

Why are you trying to make this a religious argument? You can talk about personhood without talking about souls. Personhood is an attribute of all human beings. You can’t have some humans that are persons and some that aren’t. A newly conceived person has the same dignity as one in a coma – as one with severe birth defects – as one on their wedding day – as one discovering DNA. According to our Constitution, all men (people)are CREATED equal.

Where do you get the brain wave definition of personhood? We don’t have the right as individuals to arbitrarily draw lines wherever we think personhood begins. That’s what makes this debate like the ones surrounding slavery. In both cases, humanity is acknowledged, but personhood is defined according to the “owner’s” self-interest.

Modern day abolitionists don’t want the decision to go back to the states and wind up having some “free” and some subject to abortion. Roe was as wrong as Dred because a human being’s personhood and dignity are not dependant on how convenient, dependant, large, healthy, or properly colored or parented she is. It’s inherant in her human nature. Thank yo very much!

invalid-0

If you use BCPs for medical reasons, you need to be aware that they can also have an abortifacient effect, that’s all. So, maybe use a barrier method, or abstain, or ask your physician for something that will “do no harm” (God forbid doctors should be held to that standard once more).

And if the humanity of zygotes is acknowledged by law, then, they may finally get some protection from mothers who abuse them with alchohol or abortion. What those penalties might be is up to our legislators. Would unintenionally caused miscarriages be considered manslaughter or a misdemeanor or something else? Physicians deal with life and death decisions every day and comparatively few are prosecuted when they make the wrong call and someone dies. Life is risky. I think legislators would take into account the special situation of an early miscarriage due to stress etc. versus an intentional abortion or infanticide.

The law aside, don’t you think it would be good to acknowledge that women have the privilege of having new life pass through their bodies and that they and the new life be given special consideration by employers? Fertility is not a disease but a blessing. I think we need to learn something from our experiment with trying to ignore the difference between the sexes. The first part of that learning is to acknowledge biological reality. We can learn to be responsible parents without resorting to killing in order to limit family size. We can ask for family planning methods that don’t do this.

invalid-0

“Choosing to treat the most defenseless among us as blobs of tissue having no civil rights has unfortunately become the dominant ideology, and it’s horrific.”

No, what horrific is that there are those who would take away the rights of a woman to control what does and does not happen within her body. We wouldn’t think twice about standing up against such laws if they referred to a woman not being allowed to have her hair cut, or an even better example, particularly in the realm of abortion as a life saving procedure in some cases, if these laws referred to refusing to allow a woman with breast cancer to get a mastectomy.
A fetus is every bit as much a part of the woman who carries it as her breasts and her hair. It is attached to her body. Without her body it would cease to exist. By refusing to allow women the choice of abortion we are saying that they, as sentient beings, with their own thoughts, emotions and minds are not as important in our society as the clumps of cells that inhabit their bodies without their concent. It’s sickening to think about as a woman, to be forced to endure an unwanted pregnancy. Yes, if a fetus is viable outside of the womb, then it may be considered a seperate being. But until that point, it’s life is dependant on the woman who carries it, and to force a woman to carry that life which is only life while inside her body is to reduce her status from living, breathing, sentient personhood to a state of being nothing more than a walking, talking incubator. These personhood definitions do nothing to take into account the personhood of the women carrying these fertalized eggs. From the moment that egg is fertalized, she is no longer a person, but merely a vessel in which those cells reside. Should these types of laws go into effect, they will do nothing more than remove the personhood of the pregnant woman, while granting rights to a collection of cells, when a large percentage of such “beings” would never survive past the very earliest stages of the pregnancy before being destroyed by the natural means of miscarriage.
Then there are further implications of these types of laws. Forgive me the slippery slope argument for a moment if you will, but should these types of laws go into effect, will we be punishing the woman who slips and falls down a flight of stairs, causing a miscarriage, because her fall destroyed a “person”? Would such a woman be charged with involuntary manslaughter, as would be allowed by the laws? What of a woman who causes injury to a fetus before she is aware of it’s existance? Would a woman who, shortly after a night on the town including alcohol discovers she’s pregnant, be subject to legal repercussions for child endangerment or similar charges for possibly harming a being she didn’t know existed at the time? These ideas may seem laughable, but they are serious concerns. The night before I found out I was pregnant with my third child, I had a glass of wine, not realizing I was pregnant at the time. When I went for the doctor’s appointment and found out, one of the questions asked was “have you had any alcohol recently”. Should I have been charged with child endangerment for that glass of wine, due to the damage that could have been caused to a fetus I didn’t know I was carrying at the time?
To take this slippery slope theory a step further, would a woman who spontaneously miscarries a much wanted child be subject to investigation in her time of grief to ensure that nothing she has done during her pregnancy (including the time after the egg was fertalized, but before she was aware of the pregnancy) could have caused the event? And if it’s found that something simple she might have done could have caused that miscarriage, would she then face manslaughter charges, as would any person who caused the death of a person outside of the womb? If we’re going to give legal rights, and legal personhood to the unborn, these are the ethical questions we must ask ourselves.
In a society with such laws, every woman of childbearing age, who is sexually active, and is not known to be infertile or steralized, would have to watch her every move at every moment to avoid the legal repercussions of causing potential harm to a life she may or may not be carrying, and may not even know exists.

invalid-0

“If you use BCPs for medical reasons, you need to be aware that they can also have an abortifacient effect, that’s all. So, maybe use a barrier method, or abstain, or ask your physician for something that will “do no harm” (God forbid doctors should be held to that standard once more).”

What of the women who take the pill for needed hormone effects, and NOT to prevent pregnancy? A friend of mine has a hormone deficiency, and should she go off her pills, she grows facial hair, her voice deepens, and she begins to show “masculine” traits, not to mention that the pills ease the ovarian cysts, and other painful symptoms of her deficiency. Is she just out of luck here? For her the pill is not a tool to prevent pregnancy (she actually desperately wants to have a child, but due to her hormone deficiency, and the resulting damage to her body, it is highly unlikely she will ever get pregnant or should she get pregnant, the chances of her sustaining that pregnancy to term are next to zero) but a way to prevent and aleviate the symptoms of a true illness.

“And if the humanity of zygotes is acknowledged by law, then, they may finally get some protection from mothers who abuse them with alchohol or abortion. What those penalties might be is up to our legislators. Would unintenionally caused miscarriages be considered manslaughter or a misdemeanor or something else? Physicians deal with life and death decisions every day and comparatively few are prosecuted when they make the wrong call and someone dies. Life is risky. I think legislators would take into account the special situation of an early miscarriage due to stress etc. versus an intentional abortion or infanticide. ”

But what about investigation into such matters? What decides if a woman has been abusing her zygote, or if she was simply unaware of its existance and was going about her normal life? What are the chances that the “I didn’t know it was there” defense would be enough to prevent such an investigation and the psychological damage it could cause to a woman who is already grieving over the loss of her pregnancy?

“The law aside, don’t you think it would be good to acknowledge that women have the privilege of having new life pass through their bodies and that they and the new life be given special consideration by employers? Fertility is not a disease but a blessing. I think we need to learn something from our experiment with trying to ignore the difference between the sexes. The first part of that learning is to acknowledge biological reality. We can learn to be responsible parents without resorting to killing in order to limit family size. We can ask for family planning methods that don’t do this.”

The fact of the matter is that a woman shouldn’t have to choose between retaining her fertility and a career she loves. Would a woman have to get a signed waiver of infertility from her doctor in order to persue a career considered dangerous to any potential fetus she may become pregnant with at a later date? I think that could be a very real possibility as employers scramble to protect themselves from potential lawsuits or criminal charges. To impose laws such as this is to put women back into the kitchen barefoot and pregnant (or at the very least limit us to only having the career choises of secretary or teacher), and women as a whole have struggled too hard and too long to break out of those molds to be crammed back into them.

invalid-0

“About confirming fertilization – yes, there are currently no tests to do this before implantation. All the more reason for women to act differently from men and take care of themselves in case they might already be a mother without knowing it.”

Women are different from men, yes, but not to the extreme you seem to believe. A woman should by no means have to put her entire life on hold during her childbearing years based on the idea that she might be pregnant at any time in that life. Because you are happy to be confined to a strict gender role does not make it so for the rest of the female population. While I take no issue with women who are happy in their traditional gender roles, I find those who would have the rest of us forced into them against our will incredibly offensive and disturbing.

invalid-0

The pregnant woman’s body is her own. It does not belong to the zygote inside of her to do as it wishes. It does not belong to those who would force her to do with it what they believe is moral or right. It does not belong to the church, the government, her husband, or her father. It belongs to her and to her alone, and it is the pregnant woman’s choice alone what to do with that body and anything inside it, alive or not. To take that choice away from the woman is the same as slavery or rape. A rapist takes away a woman’s choice not to have sexual contact. A slave owner takes away the rights of another person to live their lives how they choose, and the anti choice movement takes away a woman’s choice on if and when to bear children.

invalid-0

Just as no on owns the pregnant woman’s body,
no one owns the child’s body inside her.
Mothers don’t own their children. Or they shouldn’t have a right to. As the law stands, they do, and they can do anything they want to with them before they are born.

invalid-0

If brain waves do not define personhood, then an individual who is brain dead is still a person and should never be removed from life support, yet this is done all the time to preserve the dignity of that person, and if that person is an organ doner, to provide life giving organs to other persons. Should we begin refusing to take brain dead individuals off life support, (and by brain dead I mean truly brain dead, when their brain no longer functions even in the capacity to force the body to breathe or the heart to beat, which is the state of a zygote before brain function begins) and force such individuals the indignity of remaining on unwanted equipment to sustain the life of their bodies long after the natural death of the person themselves has happened? Should this kind of thinking be supported, how many families would be driven into poverty by medical bills their loved ones would have wanted prevented? How many formerly active individuals would be forced to live on as empty husks based on the morals of someone else? Where do you truly draw the line?

invalid-0

She was proud of the fact the personhood amendment was simple: “Person defined. As used in sections 3, 6, and 25 of Article II of the state constitution, the terms ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include any human being from the moment of fertilization.”

Except, of course, if that “person” is a pregnant woman. Then she gets to be incubator of the holy fetus whether she wants to or not.

I grew up among right-wing anti-choicers, and there were a lot of women like her who couldn’t see – or refused to see – the connection between forced reproduction and the return to women-as-property in every other aspect.

invalid-0

So, you think that someone who isn’t able to abort her children is not a person?

And what is this “holy fetus” stuff? I suppose we are all jsut animals? If human life stops being sacred to us then we have entered a truly “Brave New World”. We are there.

truth

Ours is the one great nation in all of history that was founded on the precept of equal rights and respect for all humankind, for the poorest and weakest of us as well as the richest and strongest. As our Declaration of Independence put it, in words that have never lost their power to stir the heart: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…" A nation founded on these principles holds a sacred trust; to stand as an example to the rest of the world, to climb ever higher in its practical realization of the ideals of human dignity, brotherhood, and mutual respect… It must be recognized that our model was never one of realized perfection, but of ceaseless aspiration. From the outset, for example, America denied the African slave his freedom and human dignity. But in time we righted this wrong, albeit at an incalculable cost in human suffering and loss of life. Our impetus has almost always been toward a fuller, more all-embracing conception and assurance of the rights that our founding fathers recognized as inherent and God-given. Ours has ever been an inclusive, not an exclusive society. And our steps, though they may have paused or faltered now and then, have been pointed in the right direction and have trod the right path. The task has not always been an easy one, and each new generation has faced its own challenges and temptations. But in a uniquely courageous and inspiring way, America has kept faith. Yet there has been one infinitely tragic and destructive departure from those American ideals. It was in this Court’s own decision in Roe v. Wade (1973) to exclude the unborn child from the human family. Our court ruled that a mother, in consultation with her doctor, has broad discretion, guaranteed against infringement by the United States Constitution, to choose to destroy her unborn child. Your opinion stated that you did not need to "resolve the difficult question of when life begins." That question is inescapable. If the right to life is an inherent and inalienable right, it must surely obtain wherever human life exists. No one can deny that the unborn child is a distinct being, that it is human, and that it is alive. It is unjust, therefore, to deprive the unborn child of its fundamental right to life on the basis of its age, size, or condition of dependency. It was a sad infidelity to America’s highest ideals when this Court said that it did not matter, or could not be determined when the inalienable right to life began for the child in its mother’s womb. Look how the decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed our great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father’s role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has protrayed the greatest of gifts – a child – as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters. And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners. Human rights are not a privilage conferred by government. They are every human being’s entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign. Our nation was founded on the proposition that human life is a gift of immeasurable worth, and that it deserves, always and everywhere, to be treated with the utmost dignity and respect. In conclusion, the common ground we seek has already been written by our founding fathers – we just need to read and live what they intended. Life, liberty and then the pursuit of happiness… This prioritized order was not by mistake.

invalid-0

“All the more reason for women to act differently from men and take care of themselves in case they might already be a mother without knowing it.”

Good God, you are serious here! You do realize, Ms Brady…that you are telling us that all sexually active women of childbearing age should consider themselves pregnant at all times and restrict themselves from any employment, hobby, and activity that may have a negative impact on the hypothetical pregnancy?

You do get that, right?

invalid-0

It is very intellectually dishonest to call people who oppose abortion “anti-choice”. It is not precise. It isn’t choice that is being opposed…it is abortion. So anti-abortion / pro-life is fair.

Do people who are pro-choice get called “pro-death” or “anti-life” in articles? Of course not.

It is dishonest and biased either way. Think.

invalid-0

Whatever

invalid-0

If you are pro-life, then do you oppose the death penalty? If you’re okay with the death penalty, anti-choice is more accurate. Personally, I don’t mind the pro-death label.

invalid-0

“Our nation was founded on the proposition that human life is a gift of immeasurable worth, and that it deserves, always and everywhere, to be treated with the utmost dignity and respect.”

There is nothing to support this; in fact, the mention of slavery negates it. Unless, of course, one wants to argue that human life was strictly something that belonged to white men who owned property (which included women and slaves). It was true then that the founding fathers were looking after there own interests first, and that is no less true today in any nation or place on earth.

Ultimately, someone’s rights will win out over someone else’s, and that’s why laws are written. People never argue about convicted criminals losing their rights, since they violated someone else’s rights; it’s regarded as a proper thing that a criminal loses his/her rights.

So why does the anti-choice movement argue that the rights of a cell or cells supersede the rights of fully developed human being? I’ve never seen that question adequately addressed.

Or are women to be considered criminals for ever having had sexual contact with a man, even against her will? The legal definition in the Colorado proposal would do just that — rape victims could be charged with a crime for aborting a fetus conceived by rape, because regardless of the nature of conception, the fetus would still legally be a human being. You’ve been raped, perhaps brutally, but sorry, that ball of cells (that, by the way, has half your rapist’s DNA) has more rights than you do.

I think Equalist said it best: “… to force a woman to carry that life which is only life while inside her body is to reduce her status from living, breathing, sentient personhood to a state of being nothing more than a walking, talking incubator. These personhood definitions do nothing to take into account the personhood of the women carrying these fertalized eggs. From the moment that egg is fertalized, she is no longer a person, but merely a vessel in which those cells reside. Should these types of laws go into effect, they will do nothing more than remove the personhood of the pregnant woman, while granting rights to a collection of cells….”

invalid-0

Those who oppose the legal right to abortion are anti-choice. They don’t want women to have a choice in whether to carry a pregnancy to term or not. It’s completely accurate. Think.

invalid-0

Ours is the one great nation in all of history that was founded on the precept of equal rights and respect for all humankind, for the poorest and weakest of us as well as the richest and strongest. As our Declaration of Independence put it, in words that have never lost their power to stir the heart…

Truth, if you’re going to inflict such a long missive on the rest of us and expect us to put forth the effort of reading it, at the very least put forth the effort of writing it yourself in the first place – rather than copying it virtually word-for-word from Mother Theresa’s 1994 Letter to the Supreme Court.

invalid-0

Actually, pro-choicers are quite often referred to as “pro-abortion” in(to use your term) anti-abortion rhetoric. Calling someone anti-choice is accurate because they do in fact oppose a choice; they oppose women being able to make their own reproductive choices.

Calling someone pro-abortion, however, is patently ridiculous because no one is for abortion. Abortion is always a last resort for women in a difficult situation.

http://www.abort73.com invalid-0

Kay:

I really struggle to understand how you (and others) in the Pro-Death Movement put your heads down at night on your pillows and sleep.

Many of your allies fight to save the lives of criminals who purposely murder, but then you aggressively promote a practice that murders children. If it really were about a so-called woman’s choice, why not legalize prostitution…Hey, it’s a woman’s choice, it’s her body..and hey, let’s legalize all drugs..it is a woman’s choice to put garbage in her body…While we’re at it, let’s legalize sex with animals…After all, it is a woman’s choice. Just because YOU decide it is your choice to do something doesn’t necessarily make it right.

40 million faces are gone since Roe v. Wade. That estimate is probably low. If that isn’t enough, you and your people support using my tax dollars to accomplish your genocide. We’ve lost an entire generation. We may have lost the person who cures cancer, the person who finds the cure for many other diseases. We may have lost a great president.

I fail to see how anyone with a heart can defend abortion. Why make the baby pay for irresponsible behavior, ‘oopsies’, and equipment failure? How one becomes pregnant isn’t a mystery.

Everyone is guaranteed life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. God help us for not defending the innocent among us.

colleen

"The reason for your confusion is that the American College of Gynecologists and Obstetricians (ACOG) has redefined the words "conception" (and therefore, the "beginning of pregnancy") to mean "implantation"
instead of "fertilization" so as to make abortifacient forms of
"contraception" palatable to women – especially those that think that
their children’s lives begin at "conception"."

So, you’re claiming that the American College of Gynecologists and Obstetricians conspired to redefine the meaning of ‘conception’ in order to hoodwink fundie women? And you expect us to believe this without any proof whatsoever because you sound so reasonable and sane? I believe it far more likely that it is you who are confused.

Particularly when one considers the fact that we’ve decades of documented and extremely destructive opposition to all forms of contraception from various factions of the religious right both Protestant and Catholic and, for that matter, Mormon. Perhaps y’all should have a conference about it.

colleen

"I really struggle to understand how you (and others) in the Pro-Death
Movement put your heads down at night on your pillows and sleep."

You know, I’ve got the same problem when I consider the social conservatives who voted for George Bush twice.

colleen

The inltellectually dishonest label is ‘pro-life’.

colleen

"Would have read it knowing it was from her?"

Because folks here are apt to find you more credible? Common kid, you plagerized Mother Theresa. Take responsibilty for your actions

"God letter – don’t you think?"

no

invalid-0

40 million faces are gone since Roe v. Wade. That estimate is probably low. If that isn’t enough, you and your people support using my tax dollars to accomplish your genocide. We’ve lost an entire generation. We may have lost the person who cures cancer, the person who finds the cure for many other diseases. We may have lost a great president.

How about all the unwanted pregnancies that WERE carried to term? All the unwanted babies born to parents who couldn’t afford to raise a child and subsequently live in poverty or close to it? What about the unwanted babies born to parents who have neither the time or inclination to parents? What sort of life did they get? I’m sure some turned out to be fine citizens, and perhaps very successful in any number of different ways. I’m also quite sure that a number of them didn’t turn out so well — perhaps becoming the prostitutes, the drug addicts, and the criminals we don’t want to deal with either.

If you’re going to argue that we may have lost brilliant doctors and great presidents because of abortion, it is just as valid to argue that we may also have lost prisons full of criminals and corrupt politicians. Sure, the “innocent child” you save today could discover the next cure for cancer tomorrow, but they could also very well be the punk carjacking you at gunpoint tomorrow, too. The argument loses quite a bit of it’s emotional appeal, obviously, when you consider it fully.

truth

Would have read it knowing it was from her? Probably not. God letter – don’t you think?

invalid-0

“40 million faces are gone since Roe v. Wade.”

Well…depends. Research suggests that women who choose abortion also choose to have children. There is not one shred of evidence to suggest that abortion has any impact on the number of children any given woman has. In other words, the “40 million” figure is misleading at best and fundamentally dishonest at worst.

I could just as easily claim that abortion has permitted women to have MORE children by permitting them to improve their circumstances for family formation.

invalid-0

Matt, you have a vagina or uterus? No? Then your narrow minded opinion means exactly diddley-squat.

otaku1960

credible scientific or medical evidence to prove this 90% theory. All internet sources I’ve looked at give a figure ranging from 30% up to 75% for failure of the zygote to implant.

<blockquote>Even if the bogus research were true, what difference would it make? Nature taking its course is quite different morally from the intentional killing of innocent human beings</blockquote>

Would you like to live in a world without abortion? Me too! I’d love to live in a world where every child is wanted, loved and cared for. I would like nothing better than to live in a world in which every child has warm clothes, enough food to eat, a warm place to sleep at night, and loving parents to take care of them.

However, just like you, I live in a reality somewhat removed from this ideal. In reality, women are raped. In reality, women have health problems which preclude them from being able to carry a pregnancy to term. In reality, there are many women who cannot care for a child because they lack the money and emotional support to do so. In reality, a woman with a child may be unable to provide for a second one.

So let’s work within the reality. Demand access to birth control. Hormonal contraceptives are not abortifacients by any means; they are designed to prevent ovulation and fertilization. Labeling something as an “abortion drug” because it might prevent implantation (after it’s already failed to prevent ovulation and fertilization? Really?) is a reactionary move which serves to reveal what the more radical parts of the pro (zygote) life crowd really wants: control over female sexuality and reproduction.

Teach comprehensive sex education. Arm teenagers and young adults with the knowledge they need to make decisions for themselves. Teach them the truth about condoms and other forms of birth control. Teach them to be proactive and to take responsibility for their actions, not to avoid sex because it’s “sinful” or because a woman’s value is between her legs (it isn’t).

Reduce the need for abortion by working to prevent unwanted pregnancy in the first place. Do so with knowledge and access to preventative measures. Spread truth instead of half-cooked lies. To women who don’t want an abortion but cannot or do not want to care for a child, provide counseling and adoption services. To women and families who cannot make ends meet, provide aid.

therealistmom

I’ve given up reading "Truth"s rants, as they rarely make any sense unless you are completely and totally brainwashed by your religious convictions.

If abortion contributed to all these allegedly horrible things, it would have done so since the beginning of time. Roe v Wade did not magically make abortions appear; it only established a woman’s legal right to bodily autonomy, so that they could seek abortion in a safe manner from trained medical professionals without fear of legal reprisal. Abortion was technically legal in pretty much every state until fairly recent history; self-abortion products (ie "menstrual inducers") were advertised in newpapers and magazines. All that making abortion illegal would do is create a new black market in providing them, and more dead women from back-alley butchers. But that’s ok if you get to ride the moral high horse eh?

invalid-0

Dr. Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of NARAL, admits that they made up the figures of the number of pre-Roe back alley abortions as part of their campaign to scare the public into legalizing aboriton.

truth

Contra = Against

Conception = Life

The problem is the attitude that we can prevent pregancy in the first place. You see, if the contraception doesn’t work and LIFE fights its way through our defense – we have set up a firing line (called ABORTION) to cut it down or snuff it out! So, in reality, the problem is that we have become a spoiled society who can abuse sex and make damn sure there are no LIVES getting through are scientific "Fort Knox." So Contraception is the problem or (at least) the philosophy of it. After all – we have given ourselves all the power so why not use it, right?

invalid-0

“we have become a spoiled society who can abuse sex”

I’m not clear as to how having non-procreative sexual intercourse with my husband is “abusive.”

invalid-0

Calling someone pro-abortion, however, is patently ridiculous because no one is for abortion. Abortion is always a last resort for women in a difficult situation.

Thank you. Even my 95-year-old grandmother knows this fact. I’m continually flabbergasted at how the anti-choice movement portrays those faced with this choice as flippant. Unfortunately, some continue to be willfully and vociferously ignorant.

invalid-0

I think that phrase, in and of itself, reveals the true underlying basis of the anti-choice position: That any woman who engages in sex must be punished for doing so.

At the very least, it reveals that Truth has a woeful misunderstanding of sex and its functions.

invalid-0

I sleep quite well at night. I personally am able to draw a clear line between the rights of a person and the rights of a fetus that is not yet viable outside of the womb. The person has more rights until such time as that fetus is viable. In the case of a woman wishing to terminate a viable pregnancy, I think she should have the right to do so, in the manner of delivery. In the case of a woman wishing to terminate a nonviable fetus, she should have full rights to do that as well through abortion. Your right to swing your fist ends at your neighbor’s nose. The right of the fetus ends where the rights of the mother begin. It’s a simple concept, and what I don’t understand is how many people (particularly women) can sleep at night while advocating the denial of rights to other women.

invalid-0

What kind of life are you advocating for these children? To put it bluntly, how many unwanted children have you taken into your home? How much time, money, and supplies do you donate to foundations who care for unwanted children? And by you, I mean you personally. What are you doing to provide happy, healthy lives to the zygotes you would force women to carry to term and deliver? Is a fetus only important as long as it’s a fetus? Does it only deserve protection as long as it is in the womb? What about after that time? What have you personally done to aleviate the suffering of children living in poverty because their parents chose not to abort? What about the children who suffer abuse and neglect for the same reason? How much do you as an individual do to help these children? Unless it’s quite a bit, you have not a leg to stand on, and your endless ranting against the decisions of women on what to do with their bodies are all hipocracy.

invalid-0

Anti-choice is an accurate description because the anti-choicers are against the CHOICE of abortion. They don’t want a woman to be able to choose whether or not to give birth at any point in her life. They don’t want to allow a woman to choose whether or not she wants to be pregnant, they want to raise the rights of the fetus above the rights of the woman carrying it, and deny the woman the choice of how to live her life. That is anti choice.

invalid-0

Hey Michael,

I really struggle to understand how you have zero compassion for women in a situation YOU WILL NEVER HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT EXPERIENCING FIRSTHAND.

Pregnancy is not for everyone. You are not the one to determine if a woman is mentally/physically/emotionally fit to endure this process. Even the most educated and sensitive men with good intentions (you clearly don’t fall into this category) cannot understand that there are women who fear the idea of pregnancy at a certain time (or permanently) for multiple reasons.

Do you really think the idea of men wagging their fingers while admonishing women considering an abortion will cause them to say, “these men clearly care about my well-being.” It won’t, because you do not.

How exactly does the woman benefit if she is forced to carry a pregnancy to term? What kind of callous response would you give to a woman who is terrified at the possibility? “Sucks to be you!”?

invalid-0

If you’re going to argue that we may have lost brilliant doctors and great presidents because of abortion, it is just as valid to argue that we may also have lost prisons full of criminals and corrupt politicians.

Absolutely.

We’re all accidents. One can argue, “well what if you had been aborted?” but then again, what if my parents hadn’t met? What if they hadn’t reconnected and subsequently eloped after the wedding was initially called off? What if they had used a different sexual position on the day of my conception? What if the day of conception was one day later (I wouldn’t be “me”).

In the meantime, please take a good look at what’s going on in Nicaragua, where abortion is banned in all cases. Women are being charged with attempted murder for attempting to have ectopic pregnancies terminated even though they’re not viable, and miscarriages have to be “proved” not to be abortion somehow or the local prosecutor will bring charges of murder.

You care more about a zygote than a woman. Your hardheartedness and turning away from God makes me physically ill.

invalid-0

They think that by trying to force women into living the way that they want them to, and picketing abortion clinics, and trying to legislate their anti choice views, that is all that they have to do. They don’t help anyone, they only hurt women. That is their TRUE goal. I can’t wait until President Obama passes the Free Choice act, thereby undoing all of the crap that these people have done to keep women from being able to have safe and legal abortions, as defined in the ammendment to our constitution. I can’t wait until we undo the horrific Health care workers conscience act that idiot Bush threw at us on his way out. It is a new day for choice!! We cannot be complacent however. The anti choicers will fight us every step of the way. That is why we need to continie to give money and time to women’s groups like Planned Panrenthood, NOW, etc.

invalid-0

includes abortion for some women. The people who are guaranteed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are born named people, not fetuses. Fetuses have a hurdle to climb, and that is gestation. If it makes it through gestation by being wanted by a woman or God (God sometimes causes miscarriges, y’know) then after it breathes it’s first breath as a born child/infant, then those rights apply. I might add that there is an amendment to the Constitution that says that a woman has a constitutional right to a safe and legal abortion. That is a part of her pursuit of happiness, if she finds herself pregnant and unable to nurture a pregnancy physically, emotionally, or economically. Maybe in your next life, you will be a woman who has a uterus and a vagina and a CLUE. Until then, don’t think that you will ever get away with dictating the lives of women or interfere with our God given pursuit of happiness, whatever that might be.

therealistmom

Anti= against

Sepsis= infection

Anti= against

biotic= life

The problem is the attitude that we can prevent infections in the first
place. You see, if the antiseptic doesn’t work and LIFE fights its
way through our defense – we have set up a firing line (called ANTIBIOTICS) to cut it down or snuff it out! So, in reality, the problem
is that we have become a spoiled society who can abuse non-sterile environments and make
damn sure there are no LIVES getting through are [sic] scientific "Fort
Knox." So antiseptics is the problem or (at least) the philosophy of
it. After all – we have given ourselves all the power so why not use
it, right?

Well, that argument just sounded downright silly now didn’t it?

invalid-0

What sickens me about all this argument over anti choice or pro choice is the belief that a woman is only useful for procreation, and her worth as a person is direcly tied to that ability or lack therof. The idea seems to be that if a woman should choose not to become pregnant at any point in her life, she loses all value as a person and is demonized for her legal, rational, and valid choice. No other group is treated in this manner since slavery and segregation were abolished, along with the idea that a black man or woman belonged working for a white man or at best in black only areas, and had no other human value. Every human being who has been born, who is not dependant on another human being for their very life (as a fetus in the womb is dependant on the life of the woman that carries it) has incredible value, and it is only women who are invalidated in this manner. When one life is completely dependant on another in order to survive. When a life is incapable of breath or heartbeat without the life of another to support it, it is not a seperate being, but a part of the boy in which it dwells, and the woman in whose body it resides should not lose respect or personhood based on the fact that she is pregnant.

invalid-0

Every human being who has been born, who is not dependant on another human being for their very life (as a fetus in the womb is dependant on the life of the woman that carries it) has incredible value, and it is only women who are invalidated in this manner. When one life is completely dependant on another in order to survive. When a life is incapable of breath or heartbeat without the life of another to support it, it is not a seperate being, but a part of the boy in which it dwells, and the woman in whose body it resides should not lose respect or personhood based on the fact that she is pregnant.

You know very soon, people who are pro-death and pro-choice will start asking for laws to protect mothers from feeding their children. They have careers and parties and other more important things to do than feed the infant, they mistakenly allowed to be born.

We were all dependent on someone, mostly our mothers to feed, clothe, bath us when we were neonates and infants. Therefore, we were incapable of supporting our own lives. Perhaps, you pro choicers want to consider the mass killing of those children who are abandoned in dustbins and other places, because their parents did not want to take responsibility.

Your argument of choice is similar to a terrorist, who kills people and then chooses not to accept the guilt for the killings.

Soon you will be saying lets kill our neighbors because they are useless to us. You have commodified the human being.

It’s not surprising that you make fun of religious beliefs and life, you choose to worship only sex. Your mind is only focused on how you can get more excitement and so sex has become a game, an entertainment for you. Well its not meant to be that way and if you don’t like it, it still doesn’t change the fact that sex is meant for new life.

Even animals have cycles and loyalty to their partners and young, but it seems like the human race is quite dizzy with sex and more sex. You would kill your own parents if they came in the way of your sexual exploits after all you have a right to choose. But you are choosing death, and right now it doesnt affect you because you think, that its someone elses life. But if we have human laws, its because we have Divine Laws first. And Divine Laws dont depend on smart rhetoric from lawyers or from skewed arguments of choice. The Divine Law is for life and everyone who kills will have to atone for the bloodshed of innocents. If you dont like the argument, thats because inside you good and evil conflict and you have decided to chose evil. Well an evil conscience is never at peace. So before you are completely beyond saving, think about your own soul and what will happen to you after death, there you wont get a pardon based on your majority vote, or convenience or trend. After death you will face a judgment by the Just Judge, who has set a Law for life. He gave you as much right to life as to your unborn brother and sister.

Stop persecuting life only because you have a voice. Defend the precious life of each human being.

Its funny that people accept the demands of animal right activists to protect turtle eggs and other unborn animals, but people actually want to destroy human life.

It is shameful to treat pregnancy like the plague, in your own hearts you know that there are many women who get an abortion because of convenience. The amount of abortions done per second are so high, do you expect the world to believe that all these abortions are done because women got raped or had a medical problem.

Most women who kill their unborn children do so for money – they dont want the added expenditure, or for convenience – again they cant give up a job or some of lifes pleasures, or simply because they dont want a child.

Abortion is the only thing wherein an innocent child is killed because two adults could not control their sexual appetites.

If abortion is right then so are all other crimes, because thieves will say they were choosing a better life in stealing from another, murders will say, they wanted a better life by eliminating someone who was a bother to them. Peodophiles are right because they want to have sex with a child, so you can very well kill the child, because the peodophile cant control his sexual desires. Terrorists are right because they want to have their way and people dont want to be bullied by them. Go stand up for all these evils if you want to stand up for abortion. All these evils are pro choice because your argument is that if you choose something it is good, so go on support your evils.

truth

First of all, we are all hypocrites – we’re human. I am advocating the life that their Creator has intended for them. I have brought and will bring any child into my home that needs it. I donate my money to foundations who help women in need and I pay taxes that go to welfare. By the way, since I was in this situation at 17 yrs old – our government’s welfare program is very good. The birth was completely paid for through medicaid and WIC offered formula and diaper help. I could have gotten food stamps and all kinds of other support. I was making $900 p/month with a two-bedroom apartment in a not-so-good part of town paying $395 and made it just fine. My son is now 15. Another example of "making it" in America "against all odds" is Barack Obama and probably countless other examples like us. I think what you are talking about when you say these children are unwanted is that you disagree with the "Quality of Life" they will have, which infers some comparison. This is a subjective judgement, and this is a dangerous slippery slope to get into and another problem that arises when we begin to "control" who lives and who dies through activities like abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide. But…Back to your questions… I am open to adoption as are many families in the U.S. and abroad. All human life in any of its many stages from conception to natural death is unique and worthy of the utmost respect and dignity. As far as women and what they should do with their bodies – I don’t care to tell them – I am of the enlightened higher order thinkers that choose to go beyond symptoms of problems or get caught up in women’s many dramatic emotional states (and men’s). The problem of contraception is a philosophical one – it’s a fallacy of our race to think we have more power than we actually do. Contraception is anti-life and this same line of thinking can be traced back 2000 years ago in Christ’s time. To try and control that which you have no control over is futile and supercedes the natural hierarchical order of the universe. In layman’s terms: If you can’t give life, then you cannot take it away either. If you choose to overstep this natural boundary, there are far reaching consequences. Now, you will immediately begin to think of many human examples where lives are and have been taken unjustly in war times, witch hunts, holy wars, etc. but these are all examples of humans being human, sinners sinning, and yes hypocrites hypocritizing. It’s what we do, and we do it well. However; this is no way to lead a civilized moral group of people. We don’t lower our ideals because we can’t attain them!? We don’t stop living because we don’t have what others have!? You are too caught up in damage control or crisis decision-making, which negates the rational. You don’t make overarching laws and regulations because there are people in crisis making emotional decisions – no – you make rational laws that guide people when they are in their crisis mode (like "unwanted pregnancy"). It’s pretty black and white – either human life is sacred or it is not. Pro-aborts need to be honest and just say that human life (to them) is not sacred and therefore they can decide when, where and how this or that life can co-exist with them. Just be honest. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter what I do with each of the unborn children that "would be" killed – even if I (alone) could raise each of them – there would still be those that would want the power themselves to give and take lives. Be courageous and stand for what is right – not what is or has happened – look at the Truth.

invalid-0

The problem is the attitude that we can prevent pregancy in the first place. You see, if the contraception doesn’t work and LIFE fights its way through our defense – we have set up a firing line (called ABORTION) to cut it down or snuff it out! So, in reality, the problem is that we have become a spoiled society who can abuse sex and make damn sure there are no LIVES getting through are scientific “Fort Knox.” So Contraception is the problem or (at least) the philosophy of it. After all – we have given ourselves all the power so why not use it, right?”

So you start out with “abortion is murder” and then work up to “contraception encourages murder.”
This assumes a)if someone didn’t use contraception, they wouldn’t consider abortion (which we know is bull, since there are right to lifers who get abortions) b)the number of people who get abortions because contraception failed is more than the number of people who don’t get abortions because the didn’t conceive.
But I suspect the real issue is women having any choice at all in the matter, so you may find all that irrelevant.

truth

Very funny. A better analogy would be Antiviral medications because a baby is more like a virus from the 0-6month period of time as a virus needs a host to live and bacterias do not. The other interesting aspect of comparing the human baby to a virus is that "most of the time" the virus needs to run its course or go to term in order to complete its cycle. Of course, if we could, we would probably remove the virus from the body if possible.

invalid-0

Actually, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is based on Locke’s idea: “No one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”
The order wasn’t a mistake, Locke was trying to justify the over throw of King James. I don’t think Locke cared to write a philosophy on what makes man a human or some such. He was just trying to prove politically why King William was justified to be the new king.

truth

…you to think deeper on this issue of LIFE? You are so caught up on this circumstance or that circumstance… This type of circumstantial subjective situational arguing leads nowhere. There are just too many unique situations to handle each one on a case-by-case basis. Look, at some point we have to (as a country) as a people either need to view all human life as sacred or not sacred. We are treating it now as NOT SACRED by our actions. We are saying that we don’t need more humans because we are a contraceptive society and we become a killing society IF our contraceptives don’t work or (worse) we need to cover up our deviant sex acts. I have heard (even the pro-aborts) say that abortion is the last resort and that no one likes it – who would – its a dirty business!? But that’s just it… Let’s figure out…Like doctors or scientists looking for a cure for cancer…what the core of the problem is. I think what you’ll find is that (at the core) is a spiritual/psychological cancer that we need to cure.

invalid-0

“Fertility is not a disease but a blessing.” For you maybe.

There are women and men, myself included, who do not want to be parents. Ever. Under any circumstance. Period.

For us, fertility is a curse. A condition that must be fought and overcome.

Glad you love the baaaabies, and want to be a mother.

Don’t assume I do.

invalid-0

Contraception prevents fertilization, for one. If it actually did prevent implantation – which is when pregnancy starts – so therefore it can’t be abortificant, as abortion is defined as the termination of a pregnancy. You fail on all fronts.

invalid-0

I’m not sure about the percentage of failed implantations, but I do know that the estimate is that at LEAST 80% of conceptions never make it to successful development for purely biological reasons.

invalid-0

I’m not sure about the percentage of failed implantations, but I do know that the estimate is that at LEAST 80% of conceptions never make it to successful development for purely biological reasons.

invalid-0

Truth, i think this is where you’re lacking in depth, or rather, have a skewed perception on what the core of the problem is. or perhaps you should clarify/elaborate on what you think the core of the problem is, i.e. what exactly is this spiritual/psychological cancer? contraception? society not considering life sacred?

if i get what you’re saying, you believe, that at least in part, abortions happen because of the use of contraception, people not viewing life as sacred, and the need to cover up deviant sex acts. did i get that right?

i think abortions happen because of lack of access to contraceptive devices and comprehensive sex education, sexual assault, the devaluing of reproductive work and lack of adequate childcare resources in a capitalist society, the social construction of “normative” sexual behavior and deviant/perverted sexual behavior (i.e. all consensual sexual behavior between adults should be respected, rather than certain sexual behaviors being considered better than others).

so i might agree with you on the sacred life thing, because obviously, we live in a society that values certain lives over others, which definitely contributes to manifesting a culture of sexual assault, shaming certain people for certain sexual preferences and behaviors, etc. if you want to cure the abortion “cancer” you have to look towards building a society that reduces the need for abortion while supporting non-reproductive sex. people will always want to have non-reproductive, you can’t change that. but you can signifcantly reduce the amount of abortions by addressing the things i mentioned.

invalid-0

AMEN!

truth

…but basically we live in a contraceptive society – meaning we try to medically prevent pregnancy allowing us to have intercourse virtually any time we want without the natural possible result – Pregnancy. What I am saying is that this line of thinking means that IF something wasn’t "supposed" to happen in the first place (i.e. pregancy occurs even though preventative measures where taken – the "pill", condoms, whatever…) then the next logical step is the last resort contraception the ultimate contraception – Abortion. As for the sanctity of life, we obviously don’t think life is sacred or we wouldn’t have abortion in the first place or contraception for that matter. If we thought of life as sacred we would honor it and rally together to make sure that every baby was born and viewed as a gift and not a burden. You mention, "…i think abortions happen because of lack of access to contraceptive devices and comprehensive sex education, sexual assault, the devaluing of reproductive work and lack of adequate childcare resources in a capitalist society, the social construction of "normative" sexual behavior and deviant/perverted sexual behavior." 1. Lack of access to contaceptive devices – I don’t think there is a lack of access but maybe willingness to use and discipline to use (i.e. condoms don’t feel good and "the pill" needs to be taken daily). What I am saying is that they very idea of prevention makes abortion the "last resort" contraception – let’s call it "The lazy man’s contraception." 2. Sexual Assault – Very small percentage of abortions [4% Rape & Incest]. 3. Lack of adequate childcare resources? There are plenty and they are good programs if used – I used them. Now, there might be a lack of wanting to be in a situation where you have to use the welfare system, but this is a quality of life/self pride issue and baby’s shouldn’t be killed because a mother doesn’t want to swallow her pride and ask for help. 4. I’m not sure what your saying about "normative" sexual behavior and deviant/perverted sexual behavior and how each should be respected and how this correlates with pregnancy and/or abortion!? Your last point about supporting a culture of non-reproductive sex is interesting and it is also an Oxymoron. This is the "cancer" I am talking about… Sex is meant to be reproductive/procreative – do you offer another way to continue the race – cloning perhaps? So you say, "…people will always want to have non-reproductive [sex], you can’t change that." This is a defeatist attitude, and you are basically saying that not only can’t we change it – but we don’t want to, right? This is the spiritual cancer I mentioned. We want all the benefits/pleasures of procreation without any of the natural consequences, right? This is not only a spiritual cancer but a pychological one because it defies all rationality and logic. We don’t teach our children this – or do we – through our actions and through teaching them how to prevent natural consequences from happening? Do you think this attitude spills over into the rest of society? How about stealing – should we prevent the natural consequences of stealing, too? Oh, yes, we do that to don’t we? Look at the latest addition to the Obama team –

When a society stops letting the natural consequences apply to people’s behavior – we have anarchy. Take a look at history and see what has happened to other societies like ours… This problem runs deep – start thinking critically – if you can.

sayna

Your rant is incoherent, nonsensical and actually contradicts what you’ve said in the past. You also fail to provide any evidence for your claims. If you can’t provide support for your arguments they will be considered invalid, so I suggest you start answering some questions.

First off: abortion is, by definition, not contraception. Contraception prevent conception. Aborting ends an already-existant pregnancy. It’s bad enough that you want to control other people’s reproductive lives, but now you demonstrate that you don’t understand medical terminology or even basic human biology.

You say that sex is “meant” to be used for reproduction. Can you explain this? Who or what means for it to be used only for this purpose? What is your basis for claiming that this is the only proper use for sexual intercourse?

You also argue that sex for pleasure is immoral. Can you explain your basis for saying this? I’m having a hard time understanding what is immoral about people making love. I think it’s safe to say that most people base morality on whether or not an action helps or harms a person or a society. If that’s your basis for morality I’d like to know what harm sexual pleasure causes. I don’t mean the negative results that can accompany sex, I’m asking what makes sexual pleasure in and of itself immoral.

I’d also like to know if your opinion that eliminating or finding solutions to negative consequences applies to other areas of life. Getting injured is a natural consequence to being in a car crash that is a natural consequence of either driving recklessly/negligently or consenting to the risk of a car accident by willingly getting into a car. Should the person be denied medical treatment? Cancer is a possible consequence of smoking. Is it an immoral action to treat cancer in a smoker?

sayna

While others have done a good job of pointing out the flaws in Michael’s rant, there’s something that was included there and in another post that I haven’t seen addressed yet. That is the comparison of abortion to genocide.

First of all, the use of this word is technically incorrect:

–noun
the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.

[Source]
The practice of allowing women to decide whether to continue or terminate a pregnancy is none of these things. Legal abortion does not seek to exterminate all fetuses. That notion is simply absurd. Furthermore, fetuses are not a national, racial political or cultural group. Your comparison–no, it wasn’t a even comparison, you outright said that the two are the same thing–your assertion that legal abortion is genocide makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. (Additionally, no faces were “lost” to abortion, they simply never cam into existance. So this is like saying that contraception and abstinence are genocide.)

I didn’t just want to call you out on a mistake in terminology though. I think that your comparison is not just wrong, it’s absolutely insulting and shameful. By making this outrageous analogy you are insulting not only the women who have had abortions but the victims and survivors of actual genocide. These people were actually killed and persecuted just for their identity. There were people actively seeking to make entire nationalities, races, political groups and cultures not exist anymore just because they hated them. An infant, child or adult is a thinking, feeling living person and those who were killed by genocide truly suffered and had their lives taken from them. People who survived genocide had everything but their lives taken from them and endured horrendous suffering. A zygote, embryo or early-term fetus, on the other hand, has neither the physical nor mental ability to sense, interpret or feel pain. If aborted before the brain is developed enough to proces pain, it will go from feeling nothing to feeling nothing.

By comparing the merciless, hate-driven slaughter and torture of these people to abortion you are trivializing their suffering. You are exploiting human atrocity and exploiting human beings for your own gain.

invalid-0

which is another point that’s been bugging me lately in this whole HHS fiasco… why are so many pro-lifers against sterilization? i mean, if there are no sperm or eggs to be fertilized, there will never even be the chance of a zygote being killed. seems to me the best option for people like scootermom and i, but still, it’s lumped in with abortion and contraception as part of the BIG BAD. someone, please explain.

truth

I referred to abortion as the "lazy man’s contraception." Taken in context with my point that the idea of prevention causes people to look at abortion as the next step in the preventative process.

Sex, at its primal level, is pleasurable so that we will do it to help continue the race. Sexual intercourse is therefore primarily for reproduction/procreation and secondarily happens to be pleasurable. The pleasure aspect of sexual intercourse is also designed to create a long-lasting bond between the male and female thereby creating longevity and stability for the child’s environment. This is basic – what don’t you understand?

I never said that sex for pleasure is immoral. After all this is the secondary aspect of the purpose of sex. What is immoral and harms society, as you put it, is when sexual intercourse and its purposes are misunderstood or perverted so that we have parentless children and mothers wanting to kill their offspring. You would think that the idea of killing your offspring would be undesirable (to say the least) enough for the woman to take care when choosing a mate, but because we have basically determined that sex is for pleasure only we have just cancelled out its primary function – reproduction.

You analysis of getting in a car wreck is a terrible situation, but also one that cannot necessarily be determined ahead of time. Getting pregnant is a direct result of having intercourse, and it is not a catastrophe in and of itself – a car wreck is. You cancer analogy again is a bad analogy because cancer is ALWAYS bad and pregnancy is not. In other words, objectively Cancer is Bad (in and of itself) pregancy is not. If you say that pregnancy for some people is like cancer – this is subjective (its just an opinion) whereas Cancer is always bad.

You will learn.

invalid-0

And just like I’m under no obligation to donate marrow or an organ even if my refusal to do so would mean certain death to another, no woman is under any obligation to allow her body to be used as a life-support system for a z/e/f.

invalid-0

If abortion is inconsistent with the U.S.A.’s “original values system”, then why didn’t the founding fathers criminalize it? Abortion was LEGAL before the founding of this country, and it was LEGAL AFTER the founding of this country.

Of course, we mustn’t forget that slavery apparently WASN’T inconsistent with the country’s “original values system”, considering that it, too, both preceded and proceeded the founding of our government…

invalid-0

The founding fathers forgot to outlaw slavery, too.

invalid-0

Your entire line of arguing is flawed, because the foundation it rests upon is flawed.

You see, kid, sex has no purpose.

Sex has functions. Yes, one of those functions is procreation. However, there is no evidence that there is any sort of hierarchy to the multiple functions of sex, which means that pleasure, emotional bonding, relief of tension, settling dominance issues, working off energy, and everything else all rank just as high as procreation.

Nor does sex = procreation, or consent to sex = consent to procreate. Basic biology – especially since we’re talking humans – proves that concept fallacious without even needing to bring anything else into the picture.

invalid-0

Truth says:

There are just too many unique situations to handle each one on a case-by-case basis.

It is precisely because there are many unique situations that we need to handle each one on a case by case basis. Otherwise we will be practicing cookie-cutter lawmaking.
.
You wouldn’t want your doctor treating you according to cookbook medicine if you had trouble breathing; you would want him or her to take your unique circumstances into account when making a diagnosis and planning treatment. The same holds true when a woman is deciding what is right for her with respect to having children. No one wants to be treated under a “one size fits all” paradigm.

invalid-0

the anti-choice people often talk of the importance of viewing life as sacred and how allowing legal and safe abortion is a “culture of death”. But facts do not support this skewed idea. Look at societys of the past and present: where there is a high level of equality between women and men, where there is a sex positive attitude–inc. medically accurate education and easy access to birth control, and legal abortion, and health care is available to all who need it there is a direct correlation of lower infant mortality rates, low rates of violence of all kinds and virtually no trafficing of children. While if you look at societys where women are controlled by men and sex is seen as only for pro-creation (and/or for women to serve their men’s “needs”) there are much higher rates of violence of all kinds, higher rates of child trafficinc such as sex trade, slavery, and child soldiers, and much higher rates of infant and maternal mortality. Just compare some of the African and Mideast countries with places like Sweden or Denmark. SO which supports a culture of death and which values life as sacred?

invalid-0

What the pro lifers need to admit to is the fact that a pregnant woman has little to no value to them other than a walking womb. Should her health be in danger because of the fetus she carries (ectopic pregnancy, etc) it is still wrong for her to abort because she’s killing an “innocent life” despite the fact that the fetus is in effect killing her much slower and more painfully than abortion would remove the fetus.
Should her mental health be in danger (such as in rape cases, many of which, upon finding themselves pregnant with a rape child will kill themselves rather than carry the child to term, thus ending the woman’s life and the fetus’ life together rather than saving at least the life of the woman to go on and create other children later in life) it’s not a good enough excuse to you for that woman to abort either because her very life is not in danger.
In the case of a woman aborting because of unstability in her life, lack of financial or emotional support, etc, she’s doing it out of “convenience” sake according to you lot. Nevermind that most women who abort for these reasons do so weighing the fact that should they choose to birth the baby and try to raise it themselves, they will never have the stability to have other children, and in many cases, adoption is not an option because it would have a great effect on the mental health of the woman, which we’ve already gone over.
The fact is, the women using abortion as birth control are very few and far between.
Another part of your comment claims we have no right to take life away because it’s not us who creates it. Honestly that’s bs. For a pregnancy to occur, you must have the fertilization of an egg and a sperm. Pregnancies don’t spontaneously happen, they occur through the joining of two people’s dna, either through intercourse or through scientific means (IVF). Should that woman and man not have sex, or that doctor not put that sperm to that egg, that fetus will not be created, so yes, we absolutely create life, and to claim we don’t have any part of it is yet another invalidation of the pregnant woman in the claim that she has no part in the creation of the life inside her. Although I have noticed that fundies (as you seem to be from your posts) don’t use that “she didn’t create it” excuse when it comes to an unwed mother getting pregnant. It’s all about if she’d kept her legs closed like she should have. So which is it, do we create life or is life spontaneously created? You can’t have it both ways without some compramise, which you seem to be unwilling to agree to.
Now as for damage control or crisis decision making, that’s exactly what an unwanted pregnancy is! It’s an unexpected, life changing event that must be treated as such. No matter what the woman’s decision, her life will be changed in dramatic ways, whether she makes the choice to raise the child, abort or adopt. That is precicely why the decision of abortion is such a personal and private one. If a woman you don’t know or even know of becomes pregnant it has no effect on your life. She is the one who will be going to the abortion clinics to fight past the lines of protestors to do what she believes is right. Or she will be the one carrying a child for nine months inside her to hand off to another family at the end of her pregnancy. Or else she will be the one spending her last pennies for diapers and formula, walking the floor with a screaming infant for hours at night, and struggling to support the child she created for a good portion of that child’s life. When another woman’s decision on what to do with her pregnancy affects you personally, then you can complain, but until then, kindly remove yourself from our wombs. We’ve got living of our own to do.

invalid-0

AnonymousInd, your comment is absolute truth. Anti choicers cannot claim to advocate the sacredness of life until they advocate that ALL life is sacred, regardless of a person’s gender, color, sexual orientation, or status as the born or the unborn. I just don’t see that happening in their minds. What I see in the minds of the anti choice crowd is that the only life that counts is the life of the fetus. And then only until it is born. Many of them see children as a punishment placed on women for their so called “sinful” behavior of having a biological need for sexual closeness, and see abortion as an avoidance of that punishment. Children aren’t a punishment, they are a gift! But they are a gift that has a time and a place to be given. If it is the wrong time in a woman’s life to have a child, then by forcing her to bear that child, you create suffering in the life of the woman and the child. By forcing the morals and values of one individual upon another, you are denying the rights of the other, and in that way devaluing their existance as a human being with their own thoughts, feelings and personal moral code. Yes, some moral laws are necessary, against theft or murder or the like, but moral laws governing what a person can do with their own body is absolutely detrimental to society as a whole because they devalue a part of the population in the eyes of the rest of the population, and suddenly it’s okay to treat a woman as less than because she is seen as less than, rather than the equal that she is.

invalid-0

so wait…what you do to help these poor unwanted ‘pre-born’ children that you force their mothers into carrying to term is…pay your own taxes?! you help out by doing something that you otherwise would go to jail for on a completely (and rightly so) unrelated offense?

and two, about us not actually creating life: …did you take a high school health class at all? or did you under the bush administration?

truth

The premise of Equalist’s argument is that the "unique living being" is a "collection of cells" so you are negating scientific fact and therefore your argument cannot stand. The human nature of a fertilized egg is not dependent on how that fertilization came to be (i.e. whether it was fertilized with rapist’s sperm or lover’s sperm). I think we need to put into context first how many fertilized egg’s are bourne due to rape and/or incest, since that is the only reason you gave that you are against the so-called "personhood" proposed laws. The number is 4%. So for the 4% of women who find themselves impregnated by a rapist or "their daddy" we are going to negate scientific fact and create another victim after the women who was already victimized!? This is not logical or rational. No, every human being has equal rights – not one above the other. These 4% of women will no doubt need counseling to bring the rape/incest baby to term and we should support this in any way we can. Abortion or creating another victim by killing is not the answer. Rethink your argument’s baseline that "an acorn is not an oak tree." Then we can talk.

truth

We are arguing about what laws should and shouln’t exist regarding the termination of a living unique human being from the 1-9month period it is housed inside the woman’s womb. This situation is not UNIQUE. Pregnancies have occurred as long as humans have – obviously. The comment I was making referred to people making arguments based on individuals circumstances or states of mind. If we were to make laws based on each possible circumstance human beings can find themselves entangled in or worse their current mental state when making a life or death decisions – well… This is called "Anarchy!" As far as Doctors treating me, the doctor should treat the cause of my symptons and try to alleviate the pain of my symptons while my body naturally fights off the problem. You are likening making the decision of killing your baby to problems breathing… "Doctor Death," please go in front of a mirror and ask yourself this question, "What have you done to protect the innocent in your life on this planet?" Do you like what you see?

truth

Whether abortion will always happen whether it is legal or not is not the point. When we "go on record" and make laws that something is legal, and it is Murder or even has this potential (for those who disregard scientific fact) this is not who we are or what we want to stand for? As far as the founding father’s criminalizing abortion – they didn’t think they had to – it wasn’t an epidemic as it is now – 50MM since Roe vs. Wade. I mean, right there, that’s 50MM more people paying into our Social Security, Medicare Programs, right? The founding father’s weren’t perfect (as seen in slavery), but think about what they wrote (even though) they had slaves!? I mean…wow. Then they held themselves, through Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, to those very words when the slaves were freed. Albeit this came after much bloodshed, which it will be a huge societal shift to go from a Contraceptive (against life) to Pro-life (For Life) type community but c’mon this is America and we can do it. We just have to use our minds, think rationally, and stop thinking about our own agendas and do what is right. Stand for life in all of its stages – no matter how small or inconvienent that little life may be or how terrible the experience was that caused it’s beginning! It’s about love.

z3ncat

Obviously you’ve finally realized one of the, if not THE, most important arguments of the pro-choice view: that no being has rights above another.

Which means that no fetus has more rights than a woman.

Which means that no fetus has the right, legally or morally, to use a woman’s body to sustain viability without that woman’s consent.

Which means that every woman has the right to obtain a safe, legal abortion if she so chooses.

invalid-0

Doesn’t matter if it can be good in some instances.

You can determine the course of any car wrecks you cause before hand by choosing to never drive – if you never drive you then will never cause one. In some cases a person gets in a car wreck such as hitting a curb post/other object because their only other option at that moment was to hit people. That’s a good thing to hit the curb post instead. A police officer can cause a car wreck to stop a kidnappers car whom are fleeing in it with a kidnapped child….good thing.

Cancer is ‘innocent’ human life. Innocent human life can be good or bad.

Sex can be good or bad… simply because sex is sometimes a good thing doesn’t mean that rape isn’t bad.

Having a knife through your stomach can be good (consented to surgery to safe your life) or bad (being stabbed or unwanted/unneeded surgery even when done by someone with a medical license)…and so on..

truth

You cannot say that something Intrinsically Evil can ever be Morally Good. This has no basis in logic and/or reason. Think about it this way… Would we make stealing legal because it makes the thief equal to the law biding citizen? Afterall, the thief is human and why should they be treated any differently than the law biding citizen? Answer: BECAUSE THEY STOLE. They chose to change their citizenship status from law biding to criminal based on their actions. Same with abortion. But wait… My argument only works if abortion is murder so (I assume) my argument breaks down and holds no merit in your opinion, right? First of all, a human fertilized egg is the beginning of a human being. Killing a human being is murder. Therefore; killing a human fertilized egg is murder. I just used the "human fertilized egg" but you could break this out in stages of human development if you wanted. The bottom line is that you/we/Our Country/The Earth needs to work on what the fertilized egg, fetus and finally 9month old baby are – then create our laws to protect or enslave. Start here…WATCH: "National Geographic’s; The Biology of Prenatal Development." Let’s look at what the lawmakers (no not congress who usually makes laws), but the Supreme Court did as a starting point. When Roe vs. Wade was determined and Justice Blackmun wrote his opinion about it he decided to put the subject aside and not determine when life begins. Mother Teresa said, "This question is inescapable." She’s right, but then why did they set this question aside? I mean Pro-Aborts are always saying that scientifically, the fertilized egg is not human and this is (I guess) how they justify abortion, but if it’s scientific then why did Justice Blackmun claim that no one could figure it out!? Now, technology and medicine have only gotten more sophisticated so why don’t we answer the question now? Seems like a very important question when making laws about whether something we will terminate is Human or Not? And…if it’s not human then what is it? …And if you don’t know or you are not sure then what should our lawmakers do? It seems to me that we just want the right to kill our babies. We don’t really care about the logic of how conclusions are deduced or about rationality, but you can read what I have written before about this below:

This egregious disregard for human life occurred on January 22, 1973 by MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN.

"Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer."

Then don’t speculate…!!!???

His error was that he set aside from his decision-making process the question of when life begins. He claimed, in the opinion of the court, that is wasn’t his responsibility to determine when life begins but rather the world’s medical, philosophical and theological world’s responsiblity and because they disagreed he wasn’t going to "…speculate as to the answer." In doing this, he couldn’t possibly make a fully informed decision about whether or not someone has a right to terminate what "might" be a human being.

Think about it – Blackmun was saying that because the argument of when life begins was/is too controversial that he wasn’t going to decide this — so he set it aside stating, "…at this point in the development of man’s knowledge…" we don’t have enough information to make this decision. If you don’t know when life begins then you have a duty to error on the side of life. To do anything else is to "possibly" commit murder.

Imagine you are a police officer testing your new state-issued weapon at the firing range and you are hitting the target and doing a great job…Then someone taps you on the shoulder and says, "Hey…there is a 50/50 chance that there is a human being directly behind that target your shooting at!" What do you think that police officer has a duty to do? Why don’t our lawmakers have the same responsibility? Why don’t we all have the same responsibility?

truth

Insert whatever you want in the blank. That’s your argument? When I say that Sex has a primary purpose or function (if you like that word better), I am talking at the primal level of continuing the species. This is the natural hi·er·ar·chy, and everything else is below it, including pleasure. This is a biological scientific fact. Please formulate a logical argument.

otaku1960

Anti-choicers are opposed to ALL reproductive choices other than childbirth. That means no BC, no EC, no reality based sex ed and no sterilization. Please note not all those who identify themselves as "pro life" feel this way, only a small majority of the movement are this crazy.

Your grievance shall be avenged.

otaku1960

Isn’t the woman also a "unique and seperate human being"? The disregard of some "pro lifers" for women verges on sexist.

Your grievance shall be avenged.

otaku1960

" First of all, a human fertilized egg is the beginning of a human being. Killing a human being is murder. Therefore; killing a human fertilized egg is murder."

That has to be one of the poorest excuses for an argument I’ve seen from you yet – and you’ve constructed some doozies. I’ve said it before: an estimated 50% of fertilized eggs fail to implant and are swept out of the body with the menstrual flow. So if your argument is valid, that means quite a lot of American women are murderers for failing to see to it the fertilized eggs inside them implant into the uterus.

Your grievance shall be avenged.

z3ncat

Because so many anti-choice arguments boil down to two ignorant, faulty beliefs: 1. Sex = procreation, and 2. Any woman who dares to engage in consensual sex without being willing to procreate deserves, nay, NEEDS to be punished.

Of course, anti-choicers aren’t the only ones who have a beef with elective sterilization. Our society as a whole still has this hangup with the idea that there is NOTHING – not curing cancer, not reaching the highest office of government, not single-handedly bringing about world peace, NOTHING – that anyone with a ‘pink blanket’ can do that is greater than going through pregnancy and childbirth. And, therefore, unless you’re past your prime childbearing years and have given birth to ‘enough’ children to meet some kind of secret standard, it is considered UNTHINKABLE that any woman would willingly LESSEN herself by giving up the most important part of her: her ability to reproduce.

Forgive me if I’m a little bitter on the subject – I’m enraged by the fact that I, and thousands of other women, are patronized, belittled, and told that we can’t be allowed to make decisions for ourselves simply because our decision is a rational, thought-out, and unchanging decision to remove our ability to procreate.

invalid-0

This is a biological scientific fact. Please formulate a logical argument.

You first.

truth

Extremely valid. One is intentional. The estimated 50% you speak of are unintentional. Just like in an ectopic pregancy. IF in the process of moving the fertilized egg from the filopian tube (where it can kill the mother) to it’s RIGHTFUL/NATURAL place in the lining of the uterus it is destroyed – this is not considered abortion. Your estimated 50% is very weak – very hard to measure. A human fertilized egg, brought to term, will ALWAYS end up as a human being – extremely measurable in many ways. Common observation being the most obvious one. Continue to deny reality.

invalid-0

“IF in the process of moving the fertilized egg from the filopian tube (where it can kill the mother) to it’s RIGHTFUL/NATURAL place in the lining of the uterus it is destroyed – this is not considered abortion.”

(clawing my eyes out right about now)

Truth…do you know anything….anything at all about female biology? Just wondering.

invalid-0

Oddly enough…humans have evolved past the “primal,” a circumstance that permits us to direct and define our “natural” responses as we best see fit.

Until you can demonstrate some sort of superior moral dimension to your assumed hierarchy…you are spinning your wheels, Truth.

mellankelly1

When I say that Sex has a primary purpose or function (if you like that word better), I am talking at the primal level of continuing the species. This is the natural hi·er·ar·chy, and everything else is below it, including pleasure

Sex is not merely a biological matter. Your statement is an example of a simplified theory (ie reductionism). Thinking of human sexuality only as a means of reproduction is a form of reductionism. One could most definitely and without question argue that sexuality is not merely a biological subject but very much a philosophical (and oftentimes religious) one. You are incorrect in stating that by looking into a biology text book you will find the meaning of sex (as procreation) to be clear. Does sex have the function of reproduction? Sure, it does. Do people engage in sex for many other purposes in spite of the possibility of reproduction? They sure do. To casually put aside as secondary all of the reasons people engage in sex is utterly reductionistic.

truth

For as long as humans have lived on this planet the primary purpose of sexual intercourse has been to populate their tribes – reproduce/procreate. The secondary aspect(s) of sex include a bond created between the man and the woman that helped them to relate peacefully with one another and this provided stability for the home environment (i.e. stability for the offspring). Only after these can you list out all the other subjective aspects that people with give about why they enjoy sex or hate it and so on… These are all tertiary. This isn’t "reduction" as you say, but rather deduction. One logically/rationally flows down naturally from the other.

You are putting the secondary and tertiary reasons for sex above the primary one – reproduction – because this is what you have done in your mind. Many in the modern world, we live in, are also doing this – so I don’t blame you – but when did the secondary reasons for sex begin to supercede the primary focus of reproduction?

Throughout history, you have had diversions or perversions whereby mid-wives would abort offspring at the mother’s choosing (Medical Doctors did not perform these because they took seriously The Hippocratic Oath which at the time specifically forbade the procedure or even the attempt). Also, men would use the withdrawal method or lamb skin etc. as a condom, but even these instances were typically thought to be scandalous (i.e. rape, adultery, etc.). They would do this to hide their "sinful act."

Even though these contraceptive methods have been used throughout time – they weren’t perfected as they have been in the last 45-80ish years (1963 "The Pill" but Eugenics Type Experimentation prior by Hitler and others). Beginning with "The Pill" [1963], we have scientifically perfected contraception to a 99.9% degree of effectiveness and consequently we have seen a dramatic change (diversion/perversion) in the natural heirarchy of the purpose(s)/function(s) of sexual intercourse.

"Sexual behavior since the introduction and legalization of the female contraceptive pill in the 1960’s has changed dramatically from what was once an act that carried the risk of pregnancy to an act which could be accomplished with the risk of pregnancy approaching zero; importantly, it was a technology controlled by women rather than by men (as was the case of previously available condoms)."

…so this diversion/perversion is recent/modern within the last 45-80yrs relative to the millions of years that humans have existed on the planet. I don’t think that a mere (maybe 100yrs vs. millions) makes your argument that sexual intercourse’s primary function is not for reproduction valid. Your argument may become more valid once we have millions of years of a contraceptive/non-life producing society behind us, but then (if you do the math) we will be extinct so it won’t matter anyway, right?

One more point. Your argument can only be valid as long as we have the perfected scientific method (i.e. "The Pill" at its 99.9% effectiveness) at our fingertips as we have for 45yrs or so. What if something were to happen where we couldn’t create or access our 99.9% effective form of contraception? Would you change your position? Would reproduction then become the primary reason for sexual intercourse? What if a state or country began paying citizens to procreate because they were losing their population? Think of a nuclear war where we had to begin to re-populate the Earth?

Your argument to use my favorite word,courtesy of my friend (Al Gore), is dependent on a Zeitgeist. It is a partial relative truth because it is dependent on "the ideas prevalent in a period and place" and so it will change with the times and mine is ALWAYS true – so one is an Objective Truth and the other is a Subjective Truth – get it? The argument "that the primary purpose of sex is for reproduction" is independent.

truth

Where the fertilized egg "accidently" plants itself outside the uterus – most commonly in one of the woman’s fallopian tubes. I’m not sure I follow what your comment means… Of course I know the biology of a woman (as does the rest of the world).

invalid-0

Supporting human life might be good in most circumstances, but there is not consensus that it is a good thing to do so by interfering with another persons body integrity…our society hasn’t supported it as a protected good even when a newborn/child needs the same resources from the womans body. To say that life is important enough to protect over anothers body – and only when it’s a fetus and only when that body being used is a womans – that is subjective.
Getting pregnant is a catastrophe for the person who doesn’t want to be.
If I’m old and want to die getting cancer isn’t necessarily a bad thing either.

invalid-0

Piggybacking on Mellankelly’s fine blurb here:

Truth, it is not enough to assert that what is “primal and natural” constitutes the foundation from which all other conclusions are derived. You have to demonstrate why “primal and natural” is reasonable as a foundation for sentient responses.

You have not done this.

invalid-0

If it lands in the fallopian tube then that was its natural placement, not the uterus. Just because you like certain things about nature and dislike other things about nature doesn’t mean those things you wish would have happened, but really didn’t happen in nature, are somehow rightful/natural.

invalid-0

Hey ahunt, I believe we were on the science and medicine blog together – anony…

Anyway, Truth cherry picks when it comes to natural that s/he agrees with (perhaps this the same Truth that has a thing for Amanda).

invalid-0

Hey Anony…I’m a critter lover and I hate beating horses that are down…but apparently someone has to do it. Luckily, this board has some serious whips.

Please note that there remains no coherent pro-life response to the reality that extending equal protection interpretations to a zygote requires denying women of childbearing age those exact same protections. Can it be that addressing the profound implications of zygote personhood is inconvenient?

invalid-0

Scientific fact is apparently something you need to read up on. Scientific fact is that a fertalized egg is a collection of cells. Scientific fact is that a fertalized egg has a slim chance of implantation. Scientific fact is that should that fertalized egg implant, it has a slim chance of developing into a complete fetus. Scientific fact is that even if it does develop into a complete fetus, it still has a chance of not surviving to term. Scientific fact is many women miscarry fertalized eggs in their regular monthly cycles and never even realize it. By granting rights to fertalized eggs, you are taking away the right a woman has to her own body, and to her own life in favor of cells that have a relatively slim chance of becoming a complete baby and being born.
Rape and incest have nothing to do with why I’m against the personhood laws. The reason I’m against the personhood laws is the potential they have to disrupt and invalidate women’s lives, and remove the rights women have fought so hard for through the years. Women have been and are consistantly seen as less than because of their ability to bear children. They are denied the right to make their own reproductive choices. The personhood laws would make life as a woman more difficult than it already is. The personhood laws would make it harder for single mothers to find jobs to support their children because employers would be forced to assume that any woman of childbearing age is pregnant at all times which would cause them to be less likely to hire women to work, particularly in skilled labor, or highly physical jobs, jobs that require exposure to chemicals or biohazards, etc, even when the risk is very slight. The personhood laws would cause women of childbearing age (who could not use most forms of birth control as it is considered an abortificant) to live in fear that they could at any time become pregnant, with no choice other than to bear the child. For many women this puts their school and work lives at risk, and in the current economy this could lead to families on the street (because it is not only the unwed who would have to fear this outcome, but married families as well). The personhood laws would make married women who do not wish to bear children at this time, fearful of engaging in sex with their husbands (an important part of any relationship, particularly a marriage as it is useful for not just sexual pleasure for both parties, but it brings bonding, closeness and stress relief).
While the personhood laws seem the only moral thing to do from your opinion, you must take into account the opinions and needs of other women who do not see things the way you do. Women who enjoy their high risk jobs AND their marriages and would rather not have to choose between one or the other. Women who are not prepared to have children yet in their lives, and are aware of this fact and therefore choose birth control options that are suitable to them. Basically, if you don’t agree with abortion, don’t have one. You don’t agree with the pill, don’t ask your doctor for a prescription. You don’t agree with women in predominantly masculine jobs or roles, then remain in your more traditional role, but stay out of the rest of our lives, and don’t push your own morals on the rest of us.

invalid-0

To say that the disregard for women verges on sexist is being far too generous. The fact is that it is blatantly sexist, and to the more strict pro lifers, the woman’s humanity is overshadowed by her role as a vessel for the purpose of carrying as many children as possible.

invalid-0

Equalist…your connecting of the dots is noble effort, but until advocates of extending equal protection laws to zygotes also realize that they advocate stripping fertile women of precisely the same protections…we’re banging our heads against Denial.

Frustrating.

truth

Normalmeaning where the fertilized egg plants itself 98% of the time. Based on the fact that ~ 2% percent of all pregnancies develop outside the uterus, when this happens it’s called an ectopicpregnancy. These, meaning ectopic pregnancies, are nearly always in the fallopian tube. My likes and dislikes have nothing to do with what happens in nature – those are my personal opinions – I can’t change the fact that the fertilized egg 98% of the time attaches itself to the inner lining of the uterus. I’m sure it does this because life always finds the best means to flourish and live, and planting in the fallopian tube(s) is not the best way so it must be an "accident". Accident meaning outside what normally happens or what is expected to happen. Expected to happen meaning what happens the majority of the time and so it becomes expected – like the sun appearing to rise in the morning and set in the evening. If this didn’t happen we might say it was an accident or not natural or not normal.

invalid-0

“expected to happen meaning what happens the majority of the time and so it becomes expected -”

By your own reasoning…what is expected to happen most of the time is the flushing of the fertilized ova.

truth

See response above to otaku1960 – she put forth the same argument and I responded accordingly. There is no issue if the fertilized egg doesn’t implant, right? Can’t have an unwanted pregnancy if you never get pregnant in the first place. Probably the best thing that can happen to a pro-abort.

invalid-0

Bravo ahunt….flushing out is normal/expected. Implanting is an accident.

invalid-0

So Truth…you are now claiming that the equal protection theory is not a matter of fertilization, but implantation. Correct?

truth

…and they don’t give you the right to kill. No good can come from that which is evil – don’t you see? Even if I thought that my baby would be in a bad situation – I still don’t have the right to take its life. No matter how small or insignificant or whether the baby will feel the pain of the killing. It’s not a matter of me looking the other way whilst you have an abortion – it’s a matter of standing for what is true. Look at slavery. In a lot of ways the slaves were better off with their masters. Not all masters were evil, but that’s not the point – is it? It’s that slavery is intrinsically evil. Indentured servitude is different because the person is agreeing to a certain contract – more like an employee, right? The things that you are complaining about are real issues for women, no doubt, but you cannot ever attain equality by exacting the same power you are complaining they are holding over you onto another small unique being. Most of what you are writing about sounds like fear of the unknown. The "what ifs" of life. I would imagine a lot of the abortions that happen are because of fear. I have children and sometimes I get scared that I might lose my job or not be able to take care of them, but something always works out.

invalid-0

Clearly you care about the unborn, but what you’re still ignoring is the rights of the woman. No person has the right to control the body of another. You don’t have the right to subject another human being to any medical procedure (such as birth) against their will, nor do you have the right to prevent that person from accessing medical treatment for any medical condition (such as pregnancy). Even doctors are not allowed to provide life saving care to someone with a DNR because such care would be against the wishes of the patient. In the case of a pregnancy, the pregnant woman is the patient, not the fetus. No one has the right to force prenatal care, childbirth, or pregnancy itself on another human being.
What it boils down to is this. You don’t have the right to decide what happens to the body of another human being. In the case of a pregnant woman, the rights of the woman supercede the rights of the fetus because the fetus is a part of the woman’s body until such time as it is viable outside of the womb. Until that time, the fetus is compltely dependant on the life of the woman. Another individual on this boad put it best. No one has the right to force an individual to provide bone marrow, blood, or a kidney even to save the life of another. In this manner, no one has the right to force a woman to provide life for a fetus she carries. To do so removes the autonomy of the woman and the control of her own body, just as forcibly removing blood, bone marrow, etc from another human removes the autonomy of the doner. The ability to control our own bodies, and reject or seek medical attention based on our own morals or beliefs is a fundamental right of all human beings. You don’t see those who are morally opposed to certain medical procedures other than abortion (blood transfusions or the use of blood products) forced to have those procedures against their will, even when they are necessary to save the life of the individual. Families are still given the option of prayer over medical treatment for themselves and their children if that is what they believe. Yes, there is outrage from the public when children in this type of circumstance die from illnesses that could be easily prevented or treated with proper medical care, but the fact remains that this is the rights of the individual to decide when and if to seek medical care and to what extent and no one has the right to make that decision for another when the other is capable of making their own decisions.

invalid-0

“The things that you are complaining about are real issues for women, no doubt, but you cannot ever attain equality by exacting the same power you are complaining they are holding over you onto another small unique being.”

Good Lord. I am “COMPLAINING” if I insist that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution applies to me?

Unbelievable!

invalid-0

Not only does HE quote Mother Theresa, a nun who never had any need for birth control, but his anti contraception rants are typical of Catholic Priest rhetoric. Very anti-women and very condescending, spoon fed from an early age probably, as fact. I wouldn’t be surprised if “TRUTH” was an old Catholic priest, the kind that has driven away women from the churches in droves. The kind that wants to see the huge Catholic famililes of the good old days, when women had no choices but to have as many kids as her husband wanted sex. Overburdened by all of that responsibility, and driven to the brink of madness and /or alcoholism, with no concept of self. As long as their were plenty of seed Catholics to grow up and help fill the coffers with money, and have become alter boys and priests, and to continue to subjugate and oppress women while men ruled all aspects of the world, things were just dandy in “TRUTH” world. Well “TRUTH”, times have changed. Your arguments don’t have weight. Women control their destiny, not men, not fetuses, no, NEVER AGAIN. Things have changed, thanks to science and law, and we WILL NEVER GO BACK. You can rant all that you want, call us names, whatever, but that is not going to change anything! We will use artificial birth control (the so called rthym method does NOT work) we will have abortions if we don’t want to be pregnant, we will have sex before marriage, we will use birth control to keep our families small so we can better use our time and afford our families. Why don’t you go on a men’s sexual health board and tell them not to have sex outside of marriage, not to use condoms, etc. and see how quickly you are laughed at or ignored. We could take a real lesson from those men, fellow women here! LOL

invalid-0

And given that there is clinical evidence that they happen, ectopic pregnancies are expected to happen in nature, regardless of whether they occur less frequently.

truth

What’s your point?

invalid-0

Truth, I am truly sick of your ignorant blathering on this board. You know nothing about female biology, you know squat about women, you are misogynistic, condescending, blind and arrogant. It is really, really obvious that you see women – no matter how much you try to cover it in pseudo-scientific concern trolling – as nothing but mothers or whores. It is testament to the patience of the mods at RH that you haven’t had your sorry ass banned.

invalid-0

Truth, screw you and the high horse you rode in on. First of all, I never said we should make laws based on individual circumstances. What I said was that people can’t be treated in cookie-cutter fashion. The way to do this is to have laws mandating that individual medical decisions be left to… individuals! (In conjunction with their medical providers.) How does a bureaucrat in Washington know more about a medical situation than a patient’s doctor?
.
Secondly, you have your own views about medicine, but they aren’t shared by everyone. You say:

As far as Doctors treating me, the doctor should treat the cause of my symptons and try to alleviate the pain of my symptons while my body naturally fights off the problem.

That will work fine for a sprained muscle or viral respiratory infection. It won’t work as well with breast or ovarian cancer. You’re obviously entitled to your own opinion, but don’t impose it on anyone else, the way you’re trying to do with your views on “life.” (Like it or not, pregnancy can cause illness or even death. Your snide remarks about breathing and babykilling don’t change that.)
.
Lastly, I help people every day I go to work. How have you made society better? Ranting on an online site doesn’t cut it.

z3ncat

Actually, you’re wrong. Procreation, at its most primal level, is about continuing the species. Sex != procreation, therefore, sex is not, at the most primal level, about continuing the species. Many species procreate without sex – including humans. Many species have sex without procreating – also including humans.

There is no hierarchy to the multiple functions of sex.

And just for the record? There are significant differences between a function and a purpose. I’ll use the best, and simplest, way to illustrate it:

A hammer has a purpose. Its purpose is to hit things.

A hand has many functions. A hand has no purpose. One of the functions of a hand is to hold things – like a hammer.

z3ncat

The very occurance of pregnancy must be an accident. After all, pregnancy isn’t the ‘normal’ result of sex – the ‘expected’ result is NO pregnancy. And implantation isn’t the ‘normal’ result of fertilization – the ‘expected’ result is the flushing of the fertilized ova.

Also, may I point out the fallacy in the argument that killing a human is always murder? Killing does not automatically equate to murder – not even when it’s a human that’s killed.

truth

I will agree with you that pregnancy is a miracle, but what we were discussing here was that 2% of all pregnancies are ectopic, which means the other 98% of PREGNANCIES are not. These are hard statistics that are empirically observed while your "flushing out" is simply an estimation. You would have to follow around a sample set of women and test them after each session with a man, or have them in a laboratory and inject them repeatedly with sperm and then monitor what happened if you want to use it against hard facts – sorry. Your argument has no base which to stand on.

As far as pointing out that killing a human being is always murder – that is a true statement. What you might be referring to is whether the murder was in self defense or during a "just war" etc. These are still technically murders but they may have been justified by some other circumstances. Self defense and war being two examples.

You are circumventing the actual argument in an effort to prove something, but why not just say what it is you are trying to prove…? We are discussing abortion and whether women should be allowed to murder their children inside their womb(s) – the logic behind the current law on the books stemming from Roe vs. Wade is severely flawed based on Justice Blackmun’s opinion which I have pointed out in other blogs. Furthermore, regardless of whether our Justices or Congress can make laws pertaining to the slaughter of innocent children – what responsibility do we have as fellow human beings watching this happen right before our eyes?

z3ncat

Yes, ahunt, how dare you think that you – a sentient, sensate, sapient, indepedent woman – being threatened by some groups with the possibility of becoming nothing more than a reproducing machine with fewer rights than a fetus is something worth raising objections – I mean, "complaining" – about. </sarcasm>

Also, notice how Truth refuses to actually ADDRESS any of the points Equalist made? Instead, zie just dismisses them with typical patronizing sexism.

z3ncat

A biological process that has occurred innumerable times in the history of this planet does NOT fit the qualifications for being a miracle.

The statement that pregnancy is not a ‘normal’ or ‘expected’ result – using your definitions of the words – remains true. I can give a source for my statement that 80% of fertilizations fail to become sucessful pregnancies, whereas your claim that implantation is around 50% remains unverified. Since 80% is a large majority, it remains true that pregnancy is NOT the ‘normal’ result of fertilization – and notice that this doesn’t even take into account the fact that fertilization is not a guaranteed result of engaging in sex. My argument does, in fact, have a very strong base to stand upon: scientific facts. What is yours based upon, other than your own opinions?

Murder, my dear ‘Truth’, is a legal construct, nothing more. It is a construct whose definitions have changed countless times over the millennia. It is NOT automatically equatable with killing.

invalid-0

I’m sorry. I refuse to curb my life, because there is a slim, tiny possibility that I might at some date find myself pregnant. By this rationale we should tell men to avoid certain foods, not go in hot tubs, and do whatever else they need to do to ensure healthy sperm, because at some point they might be needed to make a baby.
But we don’t. Because this is about controlling women, not about babies.
Additionally, that argument is, in the end, bad for children. This is because we live in a world where women need to work, simply for the fact that without a second income, most families can’t make ends meet. If women curb their lives to make way for a possible baby, that child will inevitably be born into a worse situation than it would have been otherwise. This includes married people.
Maybe you should think you theories through to their logical conclusion before you advocate them.

invalid-0

considering that doctors and midwives didn’t keep records of abortions back then, and women themselves didn’t think of abortions in the polarizing way we do today, and the fact that effective birth control wasn’t yet available, i’m thinking that the number of abortions probably hasn’t actually changed all that much. the number of women coming out the other side healthy and whole probably has, but then again, so has the number of women AND babies coming out of birth happy and whole. and, considering the booming population in this country, i think my argument is a little more probable than yours.

invalid-0

Bravo z3ncat and Equalist!

invalid-0

You fail to make your case for any hierarchy of function, Truth.

Give us a rational case for why any of us should view reproduction as the primary purpose for sex in our lives.

It only took three conjugal engagements to give us our three sons. Whyfore then, Truth…the active sex life we have enjoyed for most of the last 30 years?

mellankelly1

For as long as humans have lived on this planet the primary purpose of sexual intercourse has been to populate their tribes… The secondary aspect(s) of sex include a bond created between the man and the woman that helped them to relate peacefully with one another and this provided stability for the home environment

Um. Would you mind citing a source for you assertion that the primary purpose of sex is procreation while any other purpose is secondary? I know you keep spouting your personal beliefs regarding the purpose of sex, and that is perfectly fine… the purpose of your sexual encounters is procreation. Fantastic. Have at it. Simply claiming that your person belief is that the primary purpose of sex is procreation doesn’t make it true… it makes it your opinion.

You are putting the secondary and tertiary reasons for sex above the primary one

No, I’m not. You’ve yet to prove that procreation is the primary reason for sex (mostly because you can’t.) Please do feel free to provide any kind of proof for your assertion. Anything.

Taggert Brooks, associate professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin

Taggart Brooks also has this to say about sex: "I think we should view sex as a loving, intimate, fun, and pleasurable connection between consenting adults."

… so quoting him as a basis for (or even an example of) your assertion that we should view procreation as the purpose for sex is blatantly dishonest… even he doesn’t believe this to be true.

Your argument can only be valid as long as we have the perfected scientific method (i.e. "The Pill" at its 99.9% effectiveness) at

Ah…not that I don’t like a good red herring every now and again… its just that yours are getting pretty old. So, I’m gonna pass. Please feel free to prove (with or without "the pill") that the purpose of sex is procreation. We’re all waiting.

truth

Disprove it. If you can.

invalid-0

Truth…your opinion is nothing more than proof that you have an opinion.

therealistmom

… is that you let a cultish sect brainwash you into believing that sex is only for one purpose. Sex existed before the bible did.

mellankelly1

Let’s see… how does one go about disproving something which hasn’t been proven? You’ve offered no proof or resource to support your assertion, ergo… it hasn’t been proven. One cannot invalidate something which is not valid. Good try, but we’re still left arguing our personal beliefs regarding the "purpose" of sex. You are a strange little bird.

pcwhite

1) if you’re going to barf out such a long and convoluted rant, please do us the courtesy of properly spacing your paragraphs. It makes things so much easier to read.

4) maybe 90% of your post doesn’t even make sense, so I won’t even bother to address it.

truth

I have put forth an argument based on logic, reason and backed by history. I don’t need "resources" as the foundation of the argument is sound and the evidence upon it is empirical. The onus is now yours to logically disprove the argument using logic, reason and emprical evidence. You are saying the argument is not valid, but you need to show why? Otherwise, we would just sit here and I would say, "No, not proven." Then you would say, "No, not proven that it’s not proven." …and so on… If you can’t argue your points, or you don’t what to think critically about them then just say so.

Come to think of it – I have not seen any logical rebuttals for the arguments I have painstakingly laid before all of you – EVER. I don’t think it wise for anyone to step over to your side if your position cannot be backed by logic and reason. AND…If my arguments are so easily disproved then someone please step to the plate!

C’mon, you gonna go down that easy?

therealistmom

you just refuse to acknowledge them. You have stuck by your "sex = procreation" nonsense and won’t recognize that sex serves other functions despite well designed studies of human sexuality related to the evolution of social groupings. You refuse to acknowledge that human sexuality predates the bible and therefore is not constrained by one religious belief’s idea that sexuality only exists for creating offspring within the largely artificial confines of marriage. Faith by it’s very nature cannot be proof of anything.

When YOU bring forth an argument, YOU must prove it. Which you haven’t. All you have done is reassert your opinions as fact, repeatedly. There is NO evidence that sex has only one primary purpose- while sexual reproduction obviously originated as a method of propegating a species while diversifying the gene pool, in species of higher intellects it has evolved along with their ability to empathize and socially bond into a spectrum of activities and relationships. This CAN be proven, by many, many studies of human and animal sexual behaviors. Where is your "evidence" that the species Homo sapiens is supposed to only mate for the purposes of making more of them? There isn’t any. There are reasons that human females do not have "heat cycles" – because we are intended to be sexually receptive as a norm because it increases social bonds and, yes, mental well-being for those who engage in sexual activities for pleasure. If sex was intended only for "making babies" there would be clear fertility signals and even married people would only have intercourse (nothing else! No other sexual activities!) during that time.

You are stuck on this idea that sex(penis+vagina)= babies. It is nowhere near that simple, and I feel for any future relationships you may have.

otaku1960

<blockquote>You know very soon, people who are pro-death and pro-choice will start asking for laws to protect mothers from feeding their children. They have careers and parties and other more important things to do than feed the infant, they mistakenly allowed to be born.</blockquote>

I call horse pucky!

<blockquote>Your argument of choice is similar to a terrorist, who kills people and then chooses not to accept the guilt for the killings.

Soon you will be saying lets kill our neighbors because they are useless to us. You have commodified the human being.

It’s not surprising that you make fun of religious beliefs and life, you choose to worship only sex. Your mind is only focused on how you can get more excitement and so sex has become a game, an entertainment for you. Well its not meant to be that way and if you don’t like it, it still doesn’t change the fact that sex is meant for new life. </blockquote>

You sound upset other people refuse to obey you. Just another self-appointed moralist stamping his/her feet.

<blockquote>. If you dont like the argument, thats because inside you good and evil conflict and you have decided to chose evil. Well an evil conscience is never at peace. So before you are completely beyond saving, think about your own soul and what will happen to you after death, there you wont get a pardon based on your majority vote, or convenience or trend. After death you will face a judgment by the Just Judge, who has set a Law for life. He gave you as much right to life as to your unborn brother and sister.</blockquote>

You call this an "argument"? This is more of a train wreck, I can’t look away but it’s a tangled mess of anti-abortion sloganeering, religious posturing and the usual ignorant bad-mouthing of women who’ve had abortions. Well, branding them as "sluts" is SO much easier than understanding where they are coming from.

Your grievance shall be avenged.

invalid-0

This is the most asinine thing I’ve ever read. Yes, a newborn is dependant on another for complete and total care, but the difference between this kind of dependance and the dependance of a fetus on the pregnant woman is that anyone can feed, change, and clothe an infant. Only the pregnant woman can support the life of the fetus. When fetal transplant is a possibility, I’m sure you would personally be first in line to accept the fetus of a woman who was considering abortion, right? If not, then your opinion here has no bearing.
As for sex, it’s not just entertainment, but that is one function of it. Neither is it solely for procreation. It creates a bond for two people in a committed relationship. It is a way of communication through touch and sense rather than simply words. More illicit uses for sex are employment, domination, and control of another human being through abuse. Sex is not as simple as you imply it to be. It is a multipurpose, multifacted act, and to simplify it so is to close your eyes to the truth of it.
Your comment about the afterlife is dependant upon the belief of others in the same thing you believe. Just as you are not subject to the religious views of others, neither are they subject to your beliefs.
As for convenience, that entirely depends on your idea of convenience. If you view convenience as being able to support yourself and your family without risk of losing your job because you have to take maternity leave, being allowed to not relive the horror of rape every time you look at your growing belly, or not having your life put at risk by a pregnancy you don’t want, then I’d hate to see what you consider to be inconvenience.
The difference between abortion and the evils you describe is that abortion does not take away the rights of another sentient, autonomous human being. Abortion removes a cluster of cells from a woman’s body that dependant upon circumstances could cause great physical, mental, or emotional harm if left to grow there. The choice of abortion is a choice of what to do with one’s own body. The choice of theft, murder, pedophelia or terrorism are choices of what to do with another’s person or property without their concent. A true comparison would be to compare the unwanted pregnancy to these things because the fetus is inhabiting a woman’s body without her consent. If you are going to stand up for this, then you should stand up for the use of all human bodies without their consent, but somehow I don’t see you doing that either.

harry834

when a society and government require a woman to be pregnant against her will

I agree… if the life of a woman ceases to be highly valued and important, then we have entered a “brave new world.” Thankfully, at this time, the lives of women are considered valuable and important… whew!